


Never Knowing When To Stop

by shinobi93



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Oxford, Slurs, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 13:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 80,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10617489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinobi93/pseuds/shinobi93
Summary: Remus Lupin starts Oxford filled with nerves and excitement, barely able to believe that he’s there and away from his overprotective parents. Sirius Black turns up in a haze of rebellion, ready to show his parents that they don’t control him. James Potter wants to prove his prowess at football, downplay his ability at Maths, and, it quickly turns out, catch the attention of a certain Chemistry student. And Peter Pettigrew? He just hopes he can keep up with it all.Over the next four years, their quickly formed friendship will be subject to hijinks, drama, gossip,  arguments, unfathomable traditions, and one incident involving a stag. It turns out getting a degree is only part of it.





	1. First Year, Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Finally, the Marauders Oxford AU that has been stealing my soul since November. A massive thanks to Megan (nobodytoldthehorse) for being my editor/reader/general bringer of enthusiasm, and also thanks to anyone who sounded interested when I said that I was writing it.
> 
> Though many details are stolen from my own, friends', and acquaintances' experiences, I have used artistic licence for some little bits, mostly for plot reasons. In particular, some of the pubs and restaurants are real, others are fake.
> 
> Warnings for swearing, a lot of alcohol drinking (in keeping with UK university culture), homophobic slurs, canon-typical parenting on the Blacks' part, and a bunch of references to right wing stuff. Please let me know if I should be mentioning anything else.

Remus Lupin was nervous. Nervousness was understandable as he was starting university. Not only that, but the kind of university where people from his hometown reacted to his admission with a look, a pause, and a ‘you must be clever’ in a tone that made him uncomfortable. To his parents, he had insisted that he could make the journey on his own, brushing off their concerns by claiming that nobody else would have their parents fussing over them and he didn’t want to stand out. Now, as he stood outside his new college, having lugged his huge suitcase, rucksack, and holdall across Oxford, he saw that he’d been lying. Families jostled each other to carry bags and boxes through archaic looking archways and doors. A short round boy was looking abashed as his mum ordered him and his siblings to carry things in certain ways. Still, Remus was glad he was on his own. His parents would worry too much, even compared to these bustling families.

He collected his key and was given confusing directions to his room from the college reception - called the lodge according to the sign above the doorway. Part of him wished he could find someone else who was lost, but he had no desire to seem pathetic this early on. He walked across a courtyard and down stone passageways, his suitcase wheels catching on the uneven surface. Determined, he repeated the directions to himself, wondering where the many doors and staircases led to. He wondered if the real achievement of his degree would be navigation. He had lost track of how many grassy spaces and long passages he had seen, but the name of the building seemed correct so he started to pull his suitcase up a staircase that went on forever. Trust his luck to be on the top floor of what seemed like an endless tower.

The decision to move far away, to a place where he couldn’t hide away that would be full of intelligent, inquisitive people now seemed like a bad one, not just because he was out of breath and too warm on this unexpectedly hot October day. He should’ve gone somewhere local, stayed at home, and saved the effort. Remus shook these thoughts away. This was his dream and he’d never expected to get in; he’d spent the interview looking around to take in the sights of the place he undoubtably would not see again. He had prepared so thoroughly for this, to counter any of his parents’ hesitations that they voiced alongside their pride. He couldn’t fall at this early hurdle.

Remus was so focused on his thoughts that he barely noticed footsteps coming down the narrow staircase until he looked up and saw a face grinning down at him. 

‘Also banished to these intrepid heights? I told James it was clearly a punishment.’ Remus had time to do nothing but vaguely nod before the guy continued talking. ‘Here, give me your case; you look exhausted. Fucking maze, isn’t it?’ The guy glanced behind Remus. ‘Nobody with you? Me neither. James’ parents won’t leave. I think they’re going to stay with him forever. They’ve invited me over their house already and I only met their son two hours ago.’

Remus didn’t hand over his case, but the guy reached over and pulled it from him. He was a little stunned by the ease of talking. The guy’s accent was posh, but he was wearing a worn leather jacket and a t-shirt of a band Remus thought he vaguely recognised.

‘Thanks.’

‘Don’t mention it. Come on, you’ve nearly made it.’ He turned and started to climb the stairs, though that didn’t deter his conversation. ‘Okay, important question: what’s your name?’

‘Remus,’ he replied, wishing once again he had a normal name. ‘Remus Lupin.’

‘Another weird one! And here I was thinking Sirius was awful, at least I’ve got a standard surname. Though you’ve got a good founding Rome vibe. Did you found Rome? Do you have a twin brother?’

‘Not that I know of. I suppose you’re a constellation then?’

‘Well, I’m a star,’ said Sirius, turning around and winking. Unaccustomed to winking strangers who understood where his name came from, Remus didn’t respond. Sirius pulled his suitcase up the last few stairs and through a door, then gestured dramatically. ‘Our floor.’

They’d reached a rectangular landing with six doors leading off it. At least two of these were propped open and Remus could hear the sounds of unpacking and discussions about unpacking coming from them. Sirius led him down the hall.

‘First door is the kitchen, an incredibly kind way of describing a tiny room with some cupboards, a kettle, a microwave, and a fridge in it. Next is Peter, his family seem to be sorting out all his things for him. Then bathroom, then James.’ They paused outside James’ room and Sirius pointed inside. ‘He’s doing Maths, plays football, and is an all round good guy.’

Remus wondered how Sirius could be so sure of this when they had only just met, but didn’t question it, just nodded. He was being saved from having to go along the corridor knocking on everyone’s door in an effort to be polite - a bit of university that the internet had claimed was vital during his research, though he was rapidly questioning how much he trusted those student forums. James heard Sirius’ voice and turned and waved. He had unruly black hair, glasses, and a look of ease.

‘This is Remus, he didn’t found Rome,’ said Sirius. James looked blank, but smiled at Remus. Sirius turned to him and added in a stage whisper, ‘Mathematicians, don’t know anything useful.’

‘What subject do you do?’ Remus asked.

‘Classics. Haunted by the dead. You?’

‘Also haunted by the dead.’ Remus paused and added, ‘History.’

‘Fine, I’ll accept that. This is my room.’ He gestured to a closed door. ‘And here is yours. Probably the furthest from anything. No one will hear you scream.’ 

Sirius grinned and Remus couldn’t be sure if it was meant to be a sinister joke or an innuendo. Neither were particularly his forte. Sirius wheeled the suitcase up to Remus’ door then turned to leave, flicking his long hair out of his eyes as he did so.

‘That was the Sirius Black tour. I’m next door if you need anything. Though soon James and I are going exploring, once he’s convinced his mum that his room is fine as it is.’

‘Thanks for the help.’

Remus unlocked his door and stepped into his new room, trying to preserve the moment. At the same time, he wondered why Sirius had also come alone. Not that he wished to pry, he chided himself, taking in the room. Cosy was a good word for it, a fairly poky room full of angles that proclaimed the building’s age. A single bed sat in one corner, with a large desk beside it. Over the bed was a large window, one that looked out over rooftops and gave Remus a good view of the famous Oxford skyline. A big but rickety looking wardrobe loomed on the other side of the room. A sink in the other corner, some shelves over the desk, and a set of drawers completed the simple room. Remus let go of his bags and sat on the bed, his new bed, taking in the sights. He smiled to himself in delight. The room was his and, with a good Yale lock on the door, he felt safe. Maybe this would work out, he thought.

 

\---

 

‘Remus, do you want to come with us? It’ll be fun I promise, we’re going to-’

Remus opened the door just as Sirius was about to start making up things to see. He shut his mouth and peered past Remus into the room. There wasn’t much to see: a simple navy patterned duvet cover, some neatly lined up shoes, and some books lying on the bed were all Sirius could clock before he decided he needed to start talking again and stop gawking at someone else’s room.

‘We’re going on an adventure. Would you like to come?’ 

Sirius noticed how formal he sounded and tried to counter it by leaning a hand against Remus’ doorframe in a casual way. His attempts to distance himself from his upbringing weren’t all successful: faced with James’ friendly, posh parents he had behaved impeccably, albeit with a leather jacket and scuffed boots. 

‘Alright.’

Remus didn’t move, but kept looking at Sirius. Unsure what to do with this attention, Sirius looked down at the floor and pointed at Remus’ sock-clad feet.

‘If you want to put shoes on, we’ll wait here for you. Or you can go without. We won’t judge.’

Sirius turned and looked at James and Peter, waiting behind him. James murmured in assent whilst Peter looked a little startled. Sirius had started to wonder if Peter might look a little startled for at least the first couple of terms. Admittedly, it had been mere hours since they’d met, but Peter came across as a worried type. His round face seemed to constantly look like he might’ve forgotten something and needed to scurry away and find it. So did Remus, Sirius thought, but in a different way. A more likely to get things done way. As for James, he hadn’t seemed worried at all, which Sirius appreciated because he too liked to appear as though he was not worried. 

Remus laughed at the shoe comment and disappeared into his room. He took long enough getting ready that James had joked that the shoe thing had scared him off and Sirius had wondered if it really had, before he reappeared wearing a long coat that the weather didn’t really call for.

They set off on their adventure in a tentative way, trying to pretend that they were more certain of being at university. As they found various cloisters, areas of carefully trimmed grass, and locked doors with confusing room names, Sirius mentally admitted that it was perhaps less of an ‘adventure’ and more of a quite underwhelming and ineffectual tour. He and James kept up the bulk of the conversation to start off with, whilst Peter made occasional noises in agreement or appreciation and Remus studied everything they walked past, making quiet, wry comments. Sirius couldn’t tell if the other two heard his comments or not. After passing a noticeboard giving details of the college sports teams, James started up a monologue about football that was only responded to by Peter, who it turned out had more to say about football than he’d had during the previous discussion on whether the deer park included slides and swings for them to play on.

‘Why did you pick here?’

Sirius jumped. He had forgotten Remus was beside him, too lost in thought as he stared at the river running beside the path they’d taken, the gentle hum of James and Peter’s conversation lulling him into a trance. He hadn’t slept much the previous night.

‘Oxford? Or the college?’ he asked, turning to look at Remus, who was looking at Sirius like he’d been doing so for a while without Sirius realising. He had an inquisitive expression that Sirius found endearing.

‘Either. Both.’

‘I liked the college. Good reputation, nice buildings, and Oscar Wilde went here.’ Sirius paused and looked away from Remus, wondering how much to say. He felt a kind of careless excitement that told him to keep talking. ‘And it wasn’t the one my parents wanted.’

Sirius kicked a stone and fell silent, but Remus didn’t respond. The silence was too much.

‘They wanted me to go to Christ Church and do History of Art, same as a couple of my cousins. Worried I was picking something too hard, wouldn’t be able to keep up what was expected of me. I refused to let them have anything to do with my application, didn’t tell them any information until afterwards. They couldn’t stick their noses in that way. My mum wasn’t too pleased with that, not after she’d had to settle for me going to a no name sixth form college. Saw it as my final attempt to get away from them. Of course she was right.’

‘Oi you two, stop chattering, it’s time to find our way back to dinner,’ James called back to them. With that, Sirius’ monologue was over. He glanced at Remus as they hurried to catch up with the other two and saw a look of interest, proving that he hadn’t been bored to death by Sirius’ self-pitying rich boy rambles. Sirius wished James had given him a little longer before interrupting, so he could have at least asked Remus the same question in return.

They found their way back to the centre of college where a large stone staircase promised to lead them towards food. Sirius had been to multiple private schools - though thankfully no public schools due to his parents being rightfully convinced that he’d act even worse somewhere with that level of prestige - and even he couldn’t help but be impressed yet again with the dining hall. They got food from an anteroom with a canteen vibe and carried their plates through into the high-ceilinged hall, complete with long tables running down the length of the room. Peter was openly gawking, despite the fact they’d all been to an interview there about ten months previously, but Sirius couldn’t really blame him. 

James steered them towards the end of a table, empty apart from two people. One of them, a dark-haired guy with a disagreeable look and terrible skin, was talking rapidly, whereas the other, a girl with long ginger hair and a science pun hoodie, was listening and nodding along.

‘Here we go, lads,’ said James, a bit too loudly. ‘First dinner at Oxford. Now we should really make some more friends here.’

The girl’s eyes flicked over to them, probably because of the noise. James smiled widely and, in Sirius’ opinion, a little unnervingly. It was time, Sirius decided, to rescue his new friend.

‘James, shall we sit down? Or is your plan for this first dinner to be a standing affair?’ Once seated, Sirius did not give up his good work. ‘Customary freshers introductions time: names, subjects, fun facts all round please.’

The girl smiled as Sirius gestured to her. ‘Lily, Chemistry, and I’d never been south of Stratford Upon Avon before coming to interviews here.’

James leapt upon his opportunity. ‘James Potter, Maths, and I’ve never been north of Stratford Upon Avon.’ 

He winked at Lily. Before she could say anything or respond with more than a sharp look, Sirius had pointed at Remus.

‘Remus, History, and what’s more fun than being named from Roman legend?’

‘That’s not a real fun fact,’ Sirius pointed out. ‘That’s already apparent from your first answer.’

‘That’s as fun as I get.’

‘I doubt it.’

Lily’s companion coughed. Sirius turned and pointed at him.

‘Severus Snape, Computer Science and Philosophy, and I don’t actually go to this college - I go to a better one - but Lily’s my best friend.’

‘Which college?’ asked Peter.

‘Christ Church.’

James rolled his eyes. ‘Full of wankers.’

‘Better than you bunch of cunts.’

Peter looked startled at the effect of his question. James ran a hand through his hair and looked at Lily. 

‘I’m sorry you had to hear that.’

She glared at him. 

‘I’ve heard swearing before. And you started it.’

Sirius, enjoying being able to help in arguments he wasn’t involved it, pointed at Peter.

‘Peter Pettigrew, Archeology and Anthropology, and my mum made me bring a toaster just in case there wasn’t one because I like toast a lot.’

Sirius, James, and Remus laughed. Lily smiled and the tension round the table decreased. Sirius gave Peter a thumbs up then pointed to himself.

‘Sirius Black, Classics, and my parents wanted me to go to Christ Church as is traditional in the family, so I came to a different Oxford college to rebel.’

‘And I thought you were all right!’ exclaimed James, but with a grin that stopped the argument resurfacing.

‘We can’t all have liberal, Guardian-reading parents, you know. Some of us have to rebel from things greater than only being allowed to try a joint on special occasions.’

With a laugh, they settled down to eat. Lily and Severus left fairly quickly, allowing James to stop throwing glances her way. Sirius logged it in his memory to tease James about later on and turned the conversation to what they would all wear for the night’s freshers bop, which didn’t mean lightly hitting new people but a kind of college party. The costume theme was to dress as their subject so they passed dinner happily working out if Peter should go as a living or dead human (Remus suggested half and half). As they left the dining hall, Sirius felt full and happy, and sent a mental ‘fuck you’ to his parents for his having found this on his own.

 

\---

 

The next day, Remus woke up with a headache, a dry mouth, and a sense of disbelief that one of his new friends had worn a careful cut out pillow case, a sandal on one foot, and a bandage on the other and gone to the bop as Achilles, limping and occasionally yelling at strangers for killing Patroclus. He’d never met anybody who would not only do that, but also pull it off in a way that made people think he was fun and cool rather than crazy. Remus’ own costume had been a ruff that James had hastily made out of paper (then admitted as a child he loved origami) combined with the closest of their respective clothes that looked Elizabethan. It was, in short, forgettable. Sirius’ was not. Remus had to admit that neither was Sirius, with an handsome face and dark hair that fell easily around his face, the complete opposite to James’ mess.

Dressed and staring at the freshers week timetable of library inductions, nights out, and contrived socialising, Remus convinced himself that his new floor friends would drift away from him towards more fun people and he would perhaps find some fellow History students to tag along with. He wasn’t used to friends and especially not to making them quickly and easily. Not people like Sirius and James, loud and daring and rich. He had just about sorted out ignoring his headache and resigning himself to awkward memories of that first night when there came a knock at his door.

James stood outside, holding a bacon roll. Remus blinked.

‘For you. I went for a run and stopped off to get breakfast in hall.’

Remus looked past James and saw Sirius standing in the corridor, wearing only boxers and eating a similar bacon roll. Seeing Remus, Sirius waved.

‘I proposed to James, for the bacon, but apparently as a heterosexual man he has other life plans.’

‘I can’t settle down on my second day at university.’

‘Didn’t seem that way to me when you were trying to impress lovely Lily yesterday.’

‘Twat.’

Remus took the bacon roll and stepped out into the corridor. Peter was sitting on the floor finishing his roll with a mug of tea beside him. He smiled at Remus.

‘How’s the hangover?’ he asked. ‘I’m much better after the bacon, so currently James is top out of you three. Just so you know.’

‘Could be worse.’ 

Remus took a bite of his roll and tried to not look at Sirius. People prancing about in their underwear was another thing he wasn’t used to. Especially not people whose now-exposed torso and arms were dotted with tattoos.

‘I could’ve got bacon, just I’m not the kind of idiot who gets up for a run,’ said Sirius, slightly petulantly.

‘You’d have gone like that?’ James asked. Sirius flicked his hair back and laughed.

‘Of course. Might’ve got a bacon roll on the house.’

‘Or frostbite,’ muttered Remus. James burst out laughing.

‘It’s October,’ Sirius protested. ‘At worst I’d have a bit of a chill.’

‘Because you’re a Victorian heroine?’

‘As much fun as this is, Sirius get some clothes on because it’s freshers fair and I need to sign up for football,’ James said, pointing at Sirius’ door so he’d get the hint.

‘Alright darling, I’ll be ready for your precious sports.’

Remus was amazed that anyone could be calling a new friend ‘darling’ by the second day of knowing them, but he had to admit it was already clear that Sirius and James got along well. By the time Sirius was ready to go, James had already had two breakdowns about potentially not getting on the team whilst Peter listed every team or society he’d heard existed in the hope he could pick some activities. Remus, meanwhile, was trying to stop picturing the tattoos. His brain could not ignore the image. Sirius reappeared in his leather jacket and a paisley silk scarf, oblivious to James’ glares.

‘Won’t get frostbite now, look, I’m wearing a scarf.’

Freshers fair was an overwhelming experience; across many rooms in a huge old building in the centre of the city, there were tables and tables of potential hobbies and groups all vying for attention, plus hundreds of students browsing and considering and posturing to their new friends. At first they stuck together, standing in the way of everybody as James signed up for football tryouts and a more casual practice that Peter also put his name down for. Remus wondered if he should put his name down for one of the more unusual sports; it wasn’t as if he actually had to turn up, just get emails from them. He didn’t want anything requiring a full time commitment. Before he could decide, Sirius had linked his arm though Remus’ and was pulling him forward.

‘Come along, my non sporting pal, let’s move on. They can catch up once they’ve asserted their masculinity by getting on the mailing list for far too many sports.’

Remus was being pulled too fast against a flow of people and Sirius didn’t seem to realise their route was so ineffectual.

‘Sirius, slow down.’

Somehow, his command worked. Sirius unlinked their arms and led Remus more slowly through the crowd until they had escaped the sports section. Remus signed up for the History society as the obvious choice and Sirius accepted the Classics drinking events might be good ‘because we have Dionysus’ so put his name on the mailing list. Showing great restraint, Remus didn’t point out that Sirius had got into Oxford to do the subject and, as was revealed during the previous night’s drinking, knew both Latin and Ancient Greek, so he probably didn’t need to use the excuse of drinking to join the society.

When he’d imagined starting uni, Remus had assumed he would sign up for a few of the more sitting-based and casual sounding societies, maybe poetry or chess, even though he wasn’t particularly interested in them. Things he could tell his parents were hobbies. In the intense haze of the fair, however, he was disorientated and also became quickly aware that most of the societies weren’t exactly for those vaguely interested. They passed a frankly overwhelming amount of music and arts societies and Sirius forced him to put his name down for the historical reenactment society, which Remus vowed to get off the email list for as soon as he could. In return, Remus wrote down Sirius’ name for every board and tabletop game society they went past, standing his ground each time so Sirius couldn’t push past him and stop him writing. Remus had a height and strength advantage that was unbeatable.

Remus was about to ask Sirius if there were any actually serious societies he wanted to join when Sirius stopped suddenly and bent over a table. Remus turned and found himself face to face with Sirius, who was holding out something.

‘Look, free sweets. The kind of perks I’m looking for. Do you want a lolly to keep you going?’

He looked past Sirius to the rainbow-clad stall that was indeed giving away free sweets. Before he could think about what he was admitting to himself and, more importantly, to somebody he’d met the day before, Remus stepped round Sirius and started writing down his email address under Sirius’. He grabbed a couple of lollies from the bowl before returning to where he’d been standing before, all whilst avoiding eye contact with anyone running the stall.

‘I’ve got some.’

Sirius grinned widely and started unwrapping a lolly.

‘Good.’

Remus wasn’t sure whether he was pleased about them both having free sweets or what Remus had just presumably revealed. For his own part, Remus wasn’t surprised, but felt like perhaps they ought to talk about it. He’d never come out to anyone before, not even really himself. However, before Remus could say anything like ‘it wasn’t just for the sweets,’ Sirius had stepped away and started gesturing.

‘James! James, get over here you dick, let’s go join the communist society.’

Still stunned from what he had just done, Remus barely noticed that Sirius had grabbed hold of his arm and was once again pulling him through the thankfully lessened crowd. He stayed in a haze whilst James and Sirius did indeed sign up for the communist society, but also other political mailing lists. Peter stayed notably quiet during the politics section, whereas James and Sirius booed the Conservative stand until they were well past it and then James nearly walked straight into Lily and jumped a foot backwards. Sirius explained that James was merely distracted by the left wing cause and Lily actually smiled before walking off. They recognised various people from their college and exchanged tired hellos before eventually escaping with tote bags full of leaflets and weird free stuff.

Remus had very little time to deposit his freebies in his room and dash off to a History subject talk, so he had no chance to say anything to Sirius. Not that he had any clue what he would say if he had time. Instead he put it from his mind as he met the other historians in his college and listened to a lot of introductory material. Though taxing, this was less personal. Remus took in details about his course and his course mates, who all muttered about how many essays they might have to write. He joined in their conversations, glad for the inevitable focus upon the new tutors, the libraries, and whether anyone had done much of the summer reading, though keeping noncommittal on the latter point as he didn’t want to admit that he had too much time on his hands so had done a large amount of the reading. Together they formed a loud group at dinner, throwing round the obvious questions about where people were from alongside subject talk. 

Though not exactly hiding, Remus was glad for time alone in his room after dinner. He sat on his bed, staring at nothing, reminding himself that things were alright. University was about finding who you were and learning to express that. Not all of who he was, he knew, but perhaps a little more than he had previously been able to express. He was just considering whether to skip the evening’s quiz and drinks when his new friends started hammering on his door. It was started to seem like it might become something of a tradition.

 

\---

 

The first two weeks passed in a tiring haze. Peter wondered if James and Sirius were secretly drinking a shitload of coffee or if they just actually had that much energy, as they seemed unrelenting in their enthusiasm for gathering the four of them together for whatever event or activity was on the cards. His mum had warned him against hiding away from early socialising events in case he missed out on making friends, but instead he had the opposite problem: he’d been to so many that week and yet still had the same three friends he’d had on the first day. He liked his course mates, but a lot of them were much posher than him and had very different lives. Somehow, despite the obvious poshness of both James and Sirius, neither were as intimidating and off-putting as he’d found some other people so far. Instead, they included Peter without forcing him to always contribute: he didn’t like being put on the spot, pushed into the spotlight.

The night before matriculation, Peter sat in his room trying to organise all the paper and information he’d been given so far. Across his large desk were sheets of library induction leaflets and course outlines mixed with less official material like flyers and a rough map of Oxford that James had drawn him when he kept getting lost on the third day. After an hour, he had sorted everything in piles and put reminders on his phone for anything major in the next week. Organisation seemed like a lot more hassle than it was worth. He wished he could just follow the others everywhere and let them work it out.

Feeling at least vaguely prepared, he turned his attention to the following day. Matriculation had been on people’s minds for the past few days, as newness turned into feeling more confident and everyone was ready to tackle the less comprehensible traditions. A special formal outfit, a gown, some Latin, and a lot of drinking seemed to be the summary from the whispers he’d heard from his course mates, a few of whom had older siblings at Oxford. Faintly panicked at the uncertainty, Peter hung his suit and gown on the outside of the wardrobe, staring at it like it held the key to the future. He’d worn the black suit to his school leavers ball, a frankly disappointing event made up of far less dancing than standing round the edges drinking and pretending the teachers weren’t there. He assumed that matriculation wouldn’t be much different, only fancier and without his old teachers.

When his alarm went off, Peter awoke suddenly, startled as he’d only recently managed to get to sleep. Before he could stumble off to the bathroom, he heard the sounds of Sirius and James’ voices coming down the corridor.

‘James, there’s definitely nothing in the regulations about not wearing face paint.’

‘Doesn’t mean it’ll go down well.’

‘Fine, but I don’t like it.’

In half an hour, Peter was dressed in his suit, white bow tie, and the sleeveless black gown that they had to buy before arriving. Feeling incredibly stupid, he stepped out into the corridor where he was greeted by Sirius trying to flatten James’ hair using super strength putty.

‘I promised his mum I’d take one nice photo of him,’ explained Sirius. 

Peter wondered how James’ mum and Sirius already had a direct line, but he understood not to question it. His own outfit looked vaguely similar to his friends’, making him assume that he’d put it on correctly. Logic would have told him that their suits were obviously much better and more expensive than his, but he had no eye for clothes so Peter wasn’t bothered at all.

‘Where’s Remus?’ he asked.

‘Getting ready. Said he was feeling a bit ill.’

‘Probably nerves,’ said James. ‘Maybe there’s a challenge we’ve gotta complete to officially become part of the university. Battle a goat or something.’

Peter stared at James, his mouth accidentally open.

‘That’s not fair. Poor Peter thought you meant it.’

Peter went to defend himself, but he couldn’t make his mouth work, so he left it at Sirius’ somewhat humiliating defence. Luckily, Remus came out of his room. He did look a bit ill, but no more ill than a lot of people around the place who had freshers’ flu or some kind of endless hangover. James messed his hair up and gestured towards the stairs.

‘Alright lads, let’s go matriculate!’

As promised, the ceremony itself was short and in Latin. It was held in an old, theatre-type building that seemed to have seats everywhere, high up and low down and all around. Peter tried to take it all in, from the decorated ceiling to the fancy floor, but there was barely time for that: the man running the show, tiny from their high-up vantage point in upper level seats, had just welcomed them when he was beckoning them out. 

‘Could’ve been longer,’ said Peter as they all got outside, suddenly feeling self-conscious in his strange outfit.

‘More time for drinking,’ replied Sirius. Indeed, everyone around them was discussing their plans for the day, which all seemed to consist of finding places to drink outside before the college’s matriculation event that evening which would, of course, involve more drinking. The nearby supermarket was full of them all buying suitable alcohol and odd picnic items, the latter clearly by those still with enough guilt about needing to occasionally have a food group or two. James kept disappearing to say hello to people and would always return with another food item for the basket Sirius was carrying.

Back at college, James scoped out the best place to sit whilst Remus mumbled out an apology that he wasn’t feeling well and needed to go back to his room.

‘We’ll come and get you later, yeah?’ Sirius said. ‘You’ll be able to find us anyway. James is looking for the best spot for everyone to appreciate him, especially a certain Chemistry student.’

Remus smiled and dashed off. For a second, Peter wondered if he was okay, but then James called out that he’d found the best place for them to languish. They settled down, leaving their weird gowns on for effect, and got started on their feast as well as two bottles of prosecco, some cans of lager, and a weird liqueur Sirius had picked up because it was half price. Peter tried to pace himself, knowing that his alcohol tolerance wasn’t very impressive and he had a whole day to get through. He did gorge on cocktail sausages though, as he listening to James and Sirius make conversation with everyone who went past and fill the gaps with only saying the word ‘spiffing’. If he’d known them longer, he’d have pointed out they were both too posh to get away with doing that ironically and not just seeming like twats.

After a couple of hours, Sirius went to see how Remus was and James packed up their remaining food and drink to go and circulate with Peter in tow. Peter swigged from a can of lager and joined in with introductions, marveling at James’ ability to make endless small talk. His other ability appeared to be to keep drinking almost as endlessly, as their bags of purchases were considerably lighter. Everyone was in a cheerful mood, less nervous than when they’d all first arrived and enjoying this chance to still be new before they really had to try and settle into work properly. They saw Lily without her annoying friend and Peter laughed as James failed to say anything beyond a ‘hi’ and a long glug of prosecco that made her roll her eyes. By the time Sirius returned with Remus in tow, Peter was light-headed and James even louder than usual.

The rest of the afternoon was fairly hazy to Peter, with alcohol, tiredness, and pent-up nerves all making time speed past. They went round communal areas in large packs, then James insisted on fast food for dinner so they trooped with a few other people to McDonalds, still in their outfits from the morning. Peter sat between James and Sirius and ended up eating half of James’ food as James kept getting distracted by everything and anything. By the time they were back in their rooms to get ready for the evening’s celebration, Peter wished he could just collapse on his bed and sleep off the day, but instead he drank two glasses of water and changed his ketchup stained shirt for a fresh one: formalwear was required tonight and he had no other suits.

The event was mostly wine and nibbles and student-led a capella singing, none of which particularly enthralled Peter. He instead kept focus on James, who drank more wine and was becoming incredibly drunk for the second time that day. Sirius was leading him around, buoyantly toasting things and beckoning Remus to follow them. Peter thought that Remus too would like to be in bed, but he was gamely drinking red wine and laughing at Sirius’ jokes.

More wine. A few people braved dancing to a jazz band, mostly groups of drunken friends and the odd freshers week couple who hadn’t yet realised what a mistake they’d made. Peter saw Sirius tapping his foot and was glad that James was currently refusing to move off a very old looking chair or they might have been made to all dance. Sirius undid James’ bow tie ‘so he’d look the drunk part’ and then Remus’ ‘because you look awkward’ (Peter personally thought Remus looked far more awkward whilst Sirius undid his bow tie than he had beforehand, but was also glad Sirius left his alone because he thought he might have tied it wrong).

Suddenly, James jumped up from his seat and shouted ‘we need to see the deer!’ in a loud voice that was luckily drowned out by a loud bass part or everyone might have come with them. Instead just the four of them traipsed out of the hall, with Sirius grabbing a mostly full bottle of wine on the way, and towards the deer park. Peter had only really seen deer once at the zoo and found himself suddenly excited to see them, hurrying after James with more energy than he’d had all evening. Once at the deer park, they walked around the fenced edge, peering into the darkness where the shining glints of eyes were occasionally noticeable. Peter couldn’t stop himself keep staring, as if hoping a deer would appear right in front of him like magic.

‘Not very friendly, are they?’ said Sirius. ‘Here, Remus, have more wine.’

‘Go on then.’

Peter turned to take the wine after Remus, but when he held out his hand, his grip slipped, and the bottle fell to the floor. It didn’t smash, but red wine spilled out onto the dirt path, glistening like blood.

‘Oops.’

‘It doesn’t mat-’ began Remus.

‘James what the fuck are you doing?’ shouted Sirius.

Peter span round and looked into the distance, where James had somehow, inexplicably, got inside the deer park they weren’t meant to go into and, just as inexplicably, somehow had a stag near him. At Sirius’ shout, the stag looked startled and ran away. James howled into the darkness.

‘Prongs! Prongs! Get back here, Prongs! Prongs!’

‘I think he’s reached incoherence,’ Remus said.

‘More than normal,’ added Peter.

It took half an hour to get James back on the right side of the fence and no longer yelling after the stag. It never became apparent if he had invented a name for the stag or simply forgotten what they were called and gone for what it looked like. He was well beyond coherence as Sirius and Remus half carried him up the stairs, Sirius laughing and promising to call James ‘Prongs’ from now on. Peter was too tired to help make sure James got to bed, but went straight to his own and collapsed fully clothed. Well, Oxford is certainly as weird as expected, he thought vaguely before he fell into sleep.

 

\---

 

The image of James in suit and undone bow tie crying over a deer lasted them well into term. Sirius printed off a picture of a stag and stuck it to James’ door with a sign saying ‘Prongs’ underneath and James didn’t move it, but promised to find some way of returning the favour. None of them told the story to anyone else, however, and visitors to their floor learnt not to question the picture or caption as they wouldn’t get a straight answer.

It didn’t take long for routines and habits to start to appear. The four of them, despite different timetables, would usually eat dinner together in the college dining room, or hall as it was called. James had regular lectures every morning and went for a run before them, so tended to yell through Sirius’ door as he was leaving to wake him up for his own, later, lectures and tutorials. Anyone putting the kettle on had to offer Peter tea because he was used to an endless stream of the stuff courtesy of his mum and tended to just fall asleep without it, mostly on top of piles of books. Remus and Sirius often worked together in either the classics or history library, with it being required that whichever of them didn’t do the subject that matched their current library had to make snide comments about that subject. Peter and Sirius watched James’ Sunday morning football matches, which Remus would typically sleep through.

Only a month or so after matriculation, Remus was badly ill again and insisted he had to stay in his room and miss James showing the original Star Wars trilogy in the undergraduate common room, in what he had called ‘a service to those who’ve not seen it.’ From the gossip that spread around the college afterwards, it was clear that James had not warned anyone that as well as screening the films, he and Sirius would be adding their own reenactments on the side, aided by a bottle of rum. What Remus had found out from the source himself was that Sirius had only seen the films once and had been making most of it up on the spot.

When Remus was ill, Sirius took to loitering in the corridor outside his room, ready to ask him what was wrong when he left. It didn’t work because Remus was far too adept at going ‘just a bug or flu or something’ whilst holding up his hand to the light like trying to avoid the paparazzi. Sirius then started muttering to James about it, and both of them agreed that Remus had to be hiding something or he’d let them bring him flu remedies or tell the college nurse. However, their wondering mostly had to take a back seat as term hurtled on.

 

\---

 

‘It’s Chriiiiiiistmas!’

‘It’s really not.’

Sirius looked from James to Remus, from James’ Santa hat to Remus’ bemused expression, and felt a swell in his chest that, if asked, he wouldn’t be able to describe. He and Remus had been sitting on the floor in his room working when James burst in, with the excuse that Remus did ancient history modules and the underlying knowledge that working in mostly silence together was nicer than sitting alone in their respective rooms.

‘Fine, it’s Oxmas. But Noddy Holder never shouted that.’

‘Prongs, can you prove Noddy Holder has never said those words?’ interjected Sirius.

‘Can you prove you’re not a twat?’

‘Your eloquence astounds me.’

‘Sorry, should I have said it in Greek?’

‘I think,’ said Remus slowly. ‘That Noddy Holder probably hasn’t said those words, but also it doesn’t matter because there’s no need to be singing Slade right now.’

James pouted. 

‘But it’s Oxmas.’

‘Which does not, in fact, have any songs, as it just means the end of November and the chance to do Christmas shit with the people you won’t see after term ends next week.’

Sirius took a deep breath.

‘O little town of Ox-y-ford…’

Remus glared at him, but said nothing. James quickly joined in with creating rousing choruses and verses for their new versions of Christmas songs. Remus didn’t leave the room, Sirius noticed, but worked at a much slower pace. Peter was out at subject drinks so there was nobody else on the corridor to disturb. Eventually, they both got bored of singing and started plotting how they’d defend the college from a zombie or similar invasion.

‘But what if the invasion follows no logical rules?’ asked Sirius after thirty minutes of discussion. Remus sighed loudly and Sirius threw a pen at him without looking. From Remus’ laugh, he assumed he’d missed.

‘Then we’re screwed,’ said James, looking at his phone. ‘Oh shit, I forgot about that problem sheet and now Edgar’s texted me asking about an answer.’

‘Tell him the wrong one,’ Sirius suggested, but he pulled a face with it to show he was joking.

‘I’d better go and do it, it’s due tomorrow.’

‘Oh, how will we survive without you?’ exclaimed Sirius.

‘I’m sure you’ll manage,’ James said with a look as he walked out the door. Sirius edged over to Remus and looked down at his laptop.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Pretty much done.’

Remus made no attempt to stop Sirius looking at the screen. Sirius had noticed once on one of their library trips that Remus had a tendency to click to a different programme or cover over his notes when he thought someone might be looking at what he was doing. After that, Sirius couldn’t help but occasionally look, drawn to that which was being hidden. Berating himself for making Remus uncomfortable, he tried to just ask about Remus’ work rather than look at it.

‘Fantastic. Mine’s a translation I can definitely do later tonight - in fact it would probably be better with a bit of wine - so we should definitely go out.’

Sirius looked straight at Remus, wondering if he’d decline and say the essay needed to be done. There was a sudden urge in his brain to have fun with Remus, to not sit doing the work that was a requirement of their being there.

‘Where?’

Sirius smiled automatically and tried to turn it into a self-confident grin.

‘The Christmas - alright Oxmas - market up St Giles.’

He knew what Remus would say next.

‘Didn’t we as a group decide we weren’t going to that? That the Christmas dinner tomorrow was enough fake Christmas.’

Sirius stood up, ready to make his point.

‘We, as a group, did decide that, but we didn’t agree on James’ singing or the fact Peter is at festive subject drinks right now and didn’t even consult us about whether it was okay. We don’t need James’ permission to go.’

‘So you won’t tell him?’

‘No, I’ll tell him afterwards so he can’t complain we didn’t invite him.’

Sirius was ready to point out that James couldn’t be invited because, Sirius’ best friend at first sight or not, he had a problem sheet to complete, but Remus didn’t question him further.

‘Let me get my coat.’

Five minutes later they were fake sneaking down the stairs, Sirius in one of his many scarves and Remus wearing a woolly hat that Sirius had insisted he wear so that he looked more wintery. Outside, the evening was dark and sharp, full of students enjoying Friday night and the artificial festivities. It was only eight o’clock, but the darkness and the sense of sneaking out from doing work made it feel later. The street that held the market and fair was bright with lights and smelt like burger vans and cinnamon. Sirius couldn’t help but enthuse at everything they saw, pointing out which alcohol could be put into hot chocolate and how exciting the small rides looked. After he’d asked if there were any reindeer, forgetting himself and sounding like a small child, he felt Remus’ gaze on him.

‘Haven’t you been to a Christmas market before?’

‘No.’

‘Even I-’ started Remus, but seemed to change his mind. Sirius looked at him and realised what he wanted to ask, but also didn’t.

‘Because my parents never liked them. Think they’re tacky and beneath them. Like much of Christmas.’ Remus looked like he wanted to respond, but Sirius didn’t fancy pity, not for something so stupid. ‘So, in honour of my first ever Christmas market, you must let me buy us a ride on something.’

‘Is that an innuendo?’

‘Oh Remus Lupin, you’ve learnt so well. To think, eight weeks ago you wouldn’t know an innuendo if it…’

Remus blushed. 

‘Don’t go there.’

Sirius felt himself falling slightly, a bit breathless, into something he wasn’t sure about. No, he told himself, this isn’t the time. He wanted to dwell, to think about the dizzy recklessness that wanted to say let’s go there and take Remus by the hand and make some terrible decisions. A voice in his head, one that had more freedom now that he was at Oxford and had less need to fight and rebel, steadied him and told him to wait, to remember the fear in Remus’ eyes at freshers fair when he had, not quite as casually as Sirius, outed himself as having some reason to sign up for the LGBTQ society. For once in your life, he told himself, think a bit more carefully.

‘That tiny ferris wheel looks a perfect way to see the sights,’ Sirius said after a moment.

‘Alright, seeing as you’re paying.’

Along with the ferris wheel (Sirius had loudly described everything he could see like they were on one large enough to actually see over the buildings and spires of Oxford), Sirius insisted on buying them alcoholic hot chocolate and trying to win some kind of toy and would’ve kept going if Remus hadn’t pointed out that the museums were open late for the occasion and perhaps warmer than outdoors. Seeing Remus shiver, Sirius had to agree. Remus insisted on the museum of natural history, allowing them to stare at bugs and dinosaur skeletons in their efforts to keep warm. In the small museum gift shop, Remus insisted on giving Sirius something in return for the money he’d spent that evening. Sirius, too pleased to have good reasons to spend the money his parents begrudgingly still gave him, tried to decline, but found a range of metal animal necklaces on black cords that he decided were cheap enough to accept.

‘Go on, you pick one, seeing as you’re buying it.’

Remus looked thoughtful, as he often did, and picked out a wolf head one.

‘Here.’

‘Wolves are cool.’

Sirius undid his scarf and tried to put the necklace on, but he couldn’t get the clasp to shut behind his head.

‘C’mon Remus, give me a hand.’

Remus looked a bit startled, but took the necklace and did it up behind Sirius’s head. Sirius re-draped his scarf, purposefully not tying it so that the necklace was visible in the neckline of his shirt. They left the museum and Sirius insisted on buying them mulled wine so they didn’t freeze. Bolstered by the warmth, they ended up sitting on a bench in the centre of town, commenting on people who walked past. It was freezing cold, but Sirius didn’t notice too much, only keeping an eye for the moment when Remus seemed unable to bear it. Remus was either warmed by the wine or holding back shivers, though Sirius noticed him fiddle with the cuffs of the hoodie beneath his coat.

‘It’ll be a shame to go home,’ said Remus suddenly, after nobody interesting had passed in a minute. Sirius looked firmly at the street before responding.

‘It will.’

‘Less work, I suppose.’

‘I don’t know, I think there’ll be enough to procrastinate from.’

‘You won’t...you’ll text right? You and James and Peter?’

Sirius turned his head at that.

‘Of course. Well, I can’t speak for them, maybe I’ll speak for James and call him up to remind him, maybe tell his mum…’

‘Don’t do that!’

‘Joking, Remus, joking. I’ll only get her to make sure he replies to me.’

Sirius wanted to ask, in that moment, why Remus kept getting ill, why he shut himself away in his room when he was and wouldn’t let them bring him soup or entertainment. Why he dragged himself to lectures and classes looking tired and grey, like he’d not seen fruit in a week, instead of telling the nurse and staying in bed. He felt, however, that Remus wouldn’t tell him, would say it was nothing like he always did, even now as they sat in the freezing late November air under the stars. He would have to wait and do as he and James had decided: research over the holidays, try and match Remus’ symptoms to the internet’s offerings, ask when they had an actual suggestion.

‘We need a warm pub,’ he said instead, despite it being late. Remus nodded and they went inside the nearest one, a place frequented by tourists in the day and students at night. Remus insisted on paying for his own drink so Sirius took the offered money before buying two pints of cider. Despite the pub being packed, Remus somehow found them a tiny table in a corner where they sat until closing time debating the personal habits of historical figures and questioning recent college gossip.

‘Yeah, they say Riddle’s a creep,’ Remus said, concluding his list of which tutors were apparently the worst so far. Sirius was far less likely to be discussing work with anyone and had missed out on a great deal of this gossip.

‘You should see some of the Classics tutors. Eccentric would be too kind.’

‘Not everyone can be the world’s coolest Classics student,’ said Remus sardonically.

‘The world’s coolest, eh? I’m taking that as a compliment.’

Remus raised his eyebrows, but didn’t argue.

Eventually, they stepped back out into the cold and made their way back to college. The streets were drunker than before, with people clinging onto each other and stumbling. Tipsy and laughing, Sirius threw an arm around Remus’ neck, despite being noticeably shorter.

‘Merry Christmas, Remus.’

‘It’s not Christmas.’ A pause. Sirius turned his head and saw Remus looking straight at him. ‘Merry Christmas.’


	2. First Year, Part Two

Despite the comforts of Christmas at home, James was excited to be in the car going back to Oxford. His phone beeped as Sirius gave live updates of his progress on the bus to Oxford. He told certain elements of Sirius’ stories to his parents as they drove, leaving out the strings of profanities and Sirius’ ongoing questions about whether a couple at the back of the bus were not-so-secretly having sex (not that his parents would disapprove of the topic, but because he was pretty certain Sirius was making it all up and actually had his headphones playing loud Lou Reed). His mum repeated her insistence that Sirius should come and stay with them, to which James insisted that he had invited him to come during the summer and it was unlikely that Sirius wouldn’t turn up. James insisted he was fine carrying his suitcases, but his dad saw through his lie and helped with his luggage, allowing his mum a chance to run into Sirius on the corridor and fuss over him.

‘Mum, leave him alone, you don’t know if he looks tired or not, you’ve not seen him since October.’

He made a mental note to look at Sirius later and see if he did look tired. Luckily, Sirius was very good at putting on the charm when he needed to - better than James was.

‘It’s all the work, Mrs Potter, I’ve been up all vacation. These tutors better appreciate it.’

On cue, Sirius pretended to feel faint and stumble, but Remus had just stepped out of his room and caught hold of Sirius, looking bemused. James cringed as his mum called out Remus’ name and introduced herself, pleased to meet someone else her son had told her about. James vowed to stop telling his parents things, though he knew it wouldn’t happen. Thankfully, his parents left before they could say anything particularly embarrassing. Sirius was clearly gleeful at interacting with them.

Over dinner, they heard about Peter’s overwhelming extended family and, with a great deal of pride, how he had got off with a girl he vaguely knew from school on New Year’s Eve. James had been at his parents’ New Year party - it had been their turn to host all their friends - so told the anecdotes about drunk fifty year olds that he’d already texted to Sirius throughout the night whilst getting through a good amount of cheap brandy. Remus said the most exciting moment was when his aunt brought over her new dog, which made Sirius beg for pictures before their conversation could continue.

‘We were never allowed a dog, my dad hates them,’ Sirius explained as he looked at Remus’ phone. ‘Why didn’t you send me these pictures as soon as you saw the dog?’

‘I didn’t realise that was a requirement of knowing you,’ replied Remus, who did look a bit disappointed that he hadn’t.

‘Did you do anything good, Sirius?’ asked Peter. James considered kicking him in the shin, but Peter couldn’t exactly take back the question. From Remus’ intake of breath, James assumed that he had some awareness of Sirius’ family, as unspecific as Sirius mostly was about them.

‘I spent a lovely New Year’s Eve in a pub getting updates from James about his riotous liberal parents and from Remus about how little was on TV. I was reading Ovid in Latin and people kept buying me free drinks because I was so eccentric.’

James noticed that Remus blushed at the reference to him, as if he shouldn’t have been texting a friend over the holidays. Though he’d texted Remus sporadically - and Peter too, though Peter was terrible at replying properly - he had gathered from Sirius’ messages that Remus was lonely and Sirius’ ability to power through conversation even with little to say had helped that a bit. It was difficult not to feel somewhat protective over Remus, despite him being a fairly tall and very clever individual who would probably (not that James had considered this too often) be second best out of them in a fight, after James himself (James knew he shouldn’t ever tell Sirius this, but Sirius was smaller and got out of breath easily from having smoked too much at school).

They all had exams in a couple of days, ones called Collections that were to test if they’d actually learnt anything the previous term and didn’t actually count for anything, so after their dinner catch-up they all went off to their respective rooms to revise. James put on the background jazz music he needed to focus and settled into his notes, wishing that he still had his mum bringing him hot drinks and snacks every few hours.

After a couple of hours, he checked his emails and saw that he had one from Sirius. Strange, but email wasn’t quite a dead medium yet, despite not typically used to communicate with friends down the hall. The subject was ‘Top secret research project,’ as if Sirius thought his emails had been hacked and couldn’t be too obvious. The body of the email was a number of links which James read through, abandoning his notes. Once done, he emailed Sirius back with solely the words ‘come over’. Being secretive was quite fun, he conceded. Though the situation was a little too weird and serious to be that much fun.

Sirius pushed James’ door open only a couple of minutes later.

‘So?’ Sirius asked once the door was shut.

‘That...can’t be it.’

‘But?’

‘But it’s very convincing, from the evidence we have.’

‘You read it all?’

‘Everything.’

‘And you don’t mind?’

‘Of course not. It’s a lot to take in. But I won’t mind, once I have. If it’s true.’

‘Good.’

‘You seem alright with it?’

‘I spent the holidays looking. The email was just the result of my deciding that the likeliness outweighed the doubt and the potential looking like an idiot. I had time to take it in. Research a lot. There’s a lot more out there, though it can be hard to find. Had to call in a couple of favours to find out where to look at points.’

James didn’t ask who on earth owed Sirius and could help with the more secretive areas of the internet. The answer would either be completely mundane or he wouldn’t want to know.

‘I...had thought of it. But not seriously.’

‘Something made me look seriously.’

They looked at each other in acknowledgement of the unmade joke, but it was a sign of the intensity of the moment that they didn’t actually laugh.

‘What do we say to him?’

Sirius looked slightly panicked.

‘I thought leaving it until it came up would…’

‘In what realm will it just come up?’

‘We have weird conversations.’

‘Sirius, you’re my best friend, but you’re an idiot. Why can’t we talk about this with him?’

‘Because if he knows we know, he might never speak to us again.’

‘And if we know and he knows that, we can be...helpful. Sympathetic. Show that we’re okay with it.’

James paused for a moment, trying to work out how they would get that across. He wasn’t sure if just saying it would work for something so big.

‘We’ll have to tell him secrets ourselves,’ suggested Sirius. ‘Expose ourselves, so to speak. And not leave the room, even if it gets uncomfortable.’

James took a moment to take in what they were saying and how easily Sirius had gone from ‘this is my weird suspicion’ to ‘here’s my plan to look after our friend as best as possible’. He had expected strange situations when he came to Oxford. He hadn’t quite expected this.

‘Alright then, that’s how we’ll do it.’

‘What about Peter?’

‘I’ll tell him like the day before we decide to talk to Remus, give him a bit of time. He’ll take it better from me I think.’ James couldn’t guarantee this, but Peter was more easily placated by football talk than he was by any of Sirius’ rambles about his modern soundtrack to the Trojan war.

‘Okay. We’re doing this.’

Sirius looked slightly like he was going to be sick.

‘It’ll be fine. And not until after exams, anyway. It can wait at least a few days. It’ll be fine,’ he repeated, as Sirius nodded. James knew they were doing something monumental, but thankfully he was barely looking past the immediate consequences. In the future, he’d be amazed he’d been able to.

 

\---

 

Remus saw nothing strange about James suggesting they all hang out in one of their rooms to celebrate surviving the start of term exams and being back in Oxford. It was only a couple of days after exams had finished and Sunday night meant that though James had lectures the next morning, he didn’t have football - a bigger priority for being awake and not hungover. Peter responded in a weirdly anxious way, but then Sirius offered his room and started up a conversation about levels of tidiness and what that might say about a person, so Remus forgot that Peter had seemed odd. Besides, Remus didn’t mind if his friends sometimes acted a little weird.

They ordered in pizza and James paid and told everyone to pay him back at a future date, which Remus had picked up as James-speak for ‘you don’t ever have to pay me back but if you want to buy me a drink sometime I’m unlikely to say no’. Remus didn’t clock that nobody started drinking, even though there were cans in a carrier bag behind Sirius. They talked light-heartedly about very little, mostly about the pizza. When he saw Sirius throw James a look, he assumed it was just about something they’d been discussing earlier. It wasn’t like he always understood what James and Sirius were doing.

So Remus was not prepared when, after the pizza boxes had been moved aside, James stared straight at him and said, ‘We know what’s up with you.’ 

He stared back, frozen, brain trying to whirr into action but not quite getting there.

‘What?’

He looked around at Sirius, who was looking at him seriously, and Peter, who looked very nervous. These were not the faces of people who were about to flip it into some fun joke insult. These were the faces of people who might actually know his secret. His biggest secret. Remus wanted to run out of the room and never come back, not have to witness the moment he had been dreading and the end of his friendships, but his legs wouldn’t oblige and besides, James was sitting in front of the door and could easily tackle him. He jumped when Sirius said his name.

‘Remus, we know you’re a werewolf.’

Every inch of his body wanted to leave that moment and never return. His heart thumped in his chest, but he was immobile, unable to speak, unable to do anything. He couldn’t even flinch as Sirius edged closer to him, though he felt like he should, like whatever was happening wouldn’t go well. All he could think was, why had they given him pizza first?

‘Remus…’

He couldn’t tell which of them had said his name, but then he managed to look down and see that Sirius had lightly taken his hand. It’s a werewolf hand, he wanted to say, you shouldn’t touch it.

‘It’s okay,’ said James, clearly James this time. ‘We don’t care.’

James was smiling, and when Remus looked around so was Peter (though worriedly) and Sirius, who hadn’t let go of his hand. Remus tried to move his lips and found they worked.

‘You...you won’t tell anyone? You’ll let me go, safe? I’m harmless, I’m honestly harmless, but I’ll request a room change, there must be something-’

Whether it was James or Sirius who started hugging him first, he wasn’t certain, but considering that Sirius started closer, he seemed likely. Peter smiled more confidently, though Remus could barely see under the mound of James and Sirius. Eventually James moved away.

‘You don’t need to go anywhere,’ said Sirius, giving Remus more of his personal space back. ‘We don’t care. We read the shady websites that had to claim they were hypothetical, we understand there’s medication and stuff and seeing as we’ve never seen a great wolf hanging around, it’s clearly under control. We just wanted you to know that we know. So it’s out there.’

Remus hadn’t had a chance to think about the circumstances of their knowing. He didn’t know what to say, but he shivered, feeling himself close to crying. Whenever he had imagined people finding out, he had never imagined them saying that they’d done the research and it sounded controllable, like some chronic illness. This wasn’t fear or revulsion or panic. This was James with concern in his eyes and Sirius seemingly unwilling to stop touching a part of him in case he suddenly ran away and Peter trying to find the right facial expression and ending up looking faintly ridiculous.

‘We don’t need your past,’ said James. ‘We just want to be here for your present.’

‘As in right now,’ added Sirius. ‘We’ve not got you a “yay, you’re a werewolf” gift.’

‘The shop had run out,’ Peter said, and Remus laughed, slightly hysterical. He fell against Sirius, who put an arm around his shoulders.

‘Just you wait, we’ll have plenty more jokes where that came from.’

‘And we do actually have a bit of a gift for you,’ said James. ‘You see, in fairness, we’re all now going to share a secret with the group.’

Remus went to protest that it was unnecessary, but he liked the idea of the distraction from everyone’s focus upon him. 

‘Seems fair,’ he said quietly.

‘I’ll go first,’ said James, clearing his throat dramatically. ‘I’m in love with Lily Evans.’

Sirius snorted. ‘That’s one, not a secret, and two, a bit intense, mate.’

‘You aren’t that subtle,’ added Peter. James looked indignant.

‘It’s a pronouncement. I believe that eventually she’ll see my charms and love me too.’

‘Good luck with that,’ said Sirius. James folded his arms.

‘Alright then, what’s your secret?’ 

Remus wanted to look at Sirius, but he couldn’t because Sirius still had an arm around him. He wondered if they’d get one of Sirius’ tales of his teenage rebellion that were never quite as effective as Sirius clearly wanted them to be. Despite the size of his own secret, he willed Sirius not to talk about his family, to let the time for seriousness pass.

‘I’m gay.’

‘That’s not a secret either,’ exclaimed James, though Remus saw that Peter looked a little surprised. ‘You talk about attractive men in sometimes great detail, I caught you kissing a guy on a night out last term, and yesterday you flirted with the barista in the library cafe so he’d put whipped cream on your drink. And, I must add, Remus’ drink as well. So there Remus, you didn’t know that. Sirius uses his charm and cheekbones to get you things he seems to be paying for.’

‘I’m sorry, Remus, but he was flirting first and I knew you wanted cream.’

‘If there’s any surprise in your sexuality,’ continued James like there’d been no interruption ‘it’s that you’re still single.’

Remus let out a gasp that turned into a laugh, thankfully muffled by the fact Sirius made a loud ‘aha!’ sound and pointed his spare hand at James.

‘Prongs, even you’re not immune to my charms.’

‘Not my name, and yes I am, but even I can imagine that your leather jacket and hair combo must be pretty hard to resist.’

Remus very nearly agreed. Instead, he turned his head more carefully this time to look at the appearance that both James and Peter were now appraising. It was difficult as one of those arms, not clad in a leather jacket but bare, was round his shoulder, but regardless he looked at the plain black t-shirt and the wolf necklace around Sirius’ neck, before making it up to the hair that fell either side of Sirius’ face.

‘Not bad,’ he muttered.

‘Thank you, Moony,’ Sirius said, winking, which threw Remus off for a second but then he realised.

‘What the fuck was that?’

Sirius looked innocent.

‘A wink. I do them occasionally, it adds a roguish charm.’

James and Peter laughed.

‘No, not that, the name.’

‘Oh, Moony? Well, werewolves, moons, I thought it was good. Subtle.’

Remus leant away from Sirius so he could give him a fully judging look.

‘Moony is not, under any circumstances, a nickname.’

‘Why not?’

‘Peter hasn’t shared a secret,’ interjected James. Remus turned to give James a look of thanks for distracting Sirius, but James was giving Remus a ‘stop encouraging him’ look that he wasn’t sure he deserved. ‘Once he’s told us something shocking we can actually start drinking.’

Peter smiled.

‘Mine’s not about what I am, unless you count murderer.’ Sirius gasped dramatically. ‘When I was a kid, we had this pet rabbit. Dunno why as we had a tiny garden, but we had a rabbit called Hopsy. And one day I wanted to see what human food Hopsy liked, so I took a bunch of stuff from the kitchen and fed it to Hopsy and then the next day, Hopsy was dead.’

‘Really puts werewolves in perspective, doesn’t it?’ said Sirius. Remus elbowed him automatically and then belatedly realised that Sirius had put it in the category ‘something to faintly tease with a smile’.

‘The worst part is, my mum knew something was wrong, and when she asked me if I knew what happened, I said I’d seen my older sister feeding Hopsy the day before. My mum believed me and not my sister and she got grounded and made to look after the garden as a tribute to Hopsy.’

The other three cracked up laughing and after a moment, so did Peter. When he’d stopped laughing, Remus looked around at them.

‘So Peter’s a murderer, I’m a werewolf, Sirius unapologetically flirts to get hot drinks, and James thinks we don’t know he’s infatuated. What a bunch we are.’

‘This calls for a toast,’ said James loudly. Sirius pulled the bag of cans out from behind him and passed them round. ‘To friends going to strange corners of the internet for each other.’

They all drank, then Sirius looked at James.

‘What weird corners of the internet have you been to for me?’

‘You don’t want to know.’

‘Until I find out otherwise, I’m assuming that means you’ve been googling whether it’s okay to be attracted to me and it has led you to some dark places.’

‘I don’t think I’m the one who’s been googling that.’ 

Remus couldn’t tell if James was looking at him when he said that or not. He picked up his can and took a swig regardless, wondering if it was time to tell Sirius that he wasn’t going to bolt and didn’t need the restraining arm around him anymore. It probably wasn’t worth it, he thought.

The rest of the evening passed in a blur, the kind of blur helped by the fact that Sirius passed round a bottle of whisky once the cans of lager were over. When Remus woke up, he wasn’t immediately sure where he was, only that he didn’t think it was his own room. The room smelt a bit stale and he was incredibly warm. He opened his eyes to see that he was definitely in Sirius’ room and, from the shapes on the floor, so were James and Peter. He couldn’t see Sirius, but then he realised he was on Sirius’ bed and the reason he was so warm, other than the fact he was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, was that Sirius was clearly sleeping on the other side of him. It was amazing that they both fitted on the small single bed, but he could only imagine that Sirius was pressed against the wall. Only imagine, because he had no space to move. He tilted his head as much as he could, looking at Peter curled up in a ball and James sleeping in a nest of multiple duvets.

‘Morning.’

Remus blinked and realised that James wasn’t sleeping in the nest, but going on his phone. What happened the night before suddenly filtered into his brain.

‘Did-’ he started.

‘Yeah, you’re a werewolf. Also Sirius shouldn’t keep whisky lying around. It’s alright for you lot, but I have a lecture in half an hour.’

Remus didn’t want to ask whether they’d stayed in the room out of drunkenness or because they were worried about him. He had a feeling it was both.

‘Also, you might want to move soon, or you’ll be his comfort blanket forever.’

‘What?’ said Remus immediately, then took a second to fully take stock of his situation. There was an arm draped over his side, which he’d mistaken for just some additional warmth in his confused state. ‘Oh.’

‘He’s needy, you’re lucky he’s not wrapped around you.’

‘How-’

‘As far as I remember, Sirius said you didn’t have to sleep on the floor and you quite happily snuggled up next to him. And he doesn’t like sleeping in t-shirts. Now, I need to have a shower and move my arse to this lecture, so you’ll have to remember the rest yourself.’

James emerged from his duvet nest, stood up, and stretched. It was then that Remus realised what James had been saying. Sirius’ arm, with a constellation tattooed up the inside, was attached to a topless Sirius. Startled, he jumped and fell straight off the bed onto the floor. James burst out laughing.

‘Ow.’

‘Remus,’ said a barely awake Sirius. Remus looked up and saw Sirius, bleary eyed, take in what had just happened. ‘You fell off.’

James, not content to start his day so hilariously, had to add insult to injury.

‘It’s what happens when people realise they’re in bed with a half naked Sirius Black, it seems.’

 

\---

 

Since they’d sprung it upon Remus that they knew his secret, he had been more forthcoming about letting them help. Not much, but enough that they were allowed inside his room in the time around the full moon. James had asked about the medications and treatments, which Remus was more willing to discuss than any other elements of it, and Sirius had caught him researching them all, for there were a lot in the cocktail of things Remus had to take to ensure that he spent the full moon safely curled up in his room. Peter, who admitted that most of his idea of how to care for people came from his mum, brought mugs of tea and snacks whenever Remus was feeling too rough to leave.

And Sirius, for the past two full moons, had waited in his room the next day, reading thick books and going over vocab and anything else he needed to do, until the tap at the door and the hesitant push, a mostly silent Remus entering and sitting on Sirius’ bed, listening to Sirius talk and play music and offer opinions on that music, eventually lying down and falling asleep. The second time this happened, James came in to borrow some headphones, saw Remus sleeping whilst Sirius quietly recited Greek to himself, and gave Sirius a thumbs up whilst grabbing the headphones and leaving silently.

Not long after this, as spring was rearing its head and James revealed that unsurprisingly he liked to play tennis in the warmer months, Sirius and James had one of their ‘state of the nation’ conversations. After their solving the Remus mystery, they’d decided that everything else needed them to keep an eye on it, though ‘everything’ was mostly Remus and Peter and one-sided updates on Lily Evans. Sometimes other mutual acquaintances made it in, but only when they were running low on material.

‘Something’s up with Peter,’ said Sirius, tapping the wad of papers in his hands which he’d actually just picked up from James’ desk as a prop. ‘He’s going around with a wild-eyed look and the other day he definitely threw a book down the corridor for no reason.’

James nodded. 

‘Something is definitely up. What do you think? Love life, work, family?’

‘Could be love life. He clearly has more of one than the rest of us if his stories are to be believed.’

Sirius thought that the stories were real because Peter also seemed adept at dancing with girls on nights out and making the girls on his course laugh at what he was saying.

‘It says something bad about Remus and I that you’re second on that list, and I’ve seen you kiss exactly one person which is how you got there. Your lack of success is astounding.’

‘It requires finesse.’

‘Bullshit. It requires you to notice when people are taking interest in you, and I don’t mean the legion of girls who stare longingly. I’ve seen guys move seats in the library to try and get you to notice them.’

‘James, this isn’t Brideshead.’

‘Only because you refused to go to Christ Church.’

‘Do not call me Sebastian Flyte. I got over that phase at least three years ago.’

‘Was that the school you were politely told to never return to-’

‘-after getting caught kissing multiple members of the rugby team when I should’ve been in lessons? Yes.’

James shook his head. ‘It is amazing that you got kicked out of three different private schools, for smoking, kissing guys, and organising a protest.’

‘It was carefully done. How else would I have got the chance to go to a non-private sixth form college and piss off my parents when they had to stop mentioning what I was doing to everybody they knew?’

‘So disgraceful. Anyone else’s parents would be overjoyed at their son working hard at sixth form, but you did it to spite them.’

‘James, we’re meant to be talking about Peter’s issues, not mine.’

‘Right, well why don’t you talk to him whilst you’re watching me play football on Sunday?’

‘Fine. But I hope it’s not a girl problem. I’m only willing to help you because it only involves saying “James, stop pining after her, she thinks you’re annoying” on repeat.’

‘Don’t lie, you love giving unasked for advice.’

Sirius huffed, but didn’t argue. He wouldn’t really set a boundary on what he’d help Peter with; they did help Remus with being a secret werewolf, after all.

Sunday rolled around and Peter still seemed off, liable to suddenly disappear when they were all hanging out. James left bright and early and Sirius and Peter trudged over to the sports ground once they’d had toast and coffee. They said hello to the other people foolish enough to get up to watch their friend or boyfriend play football in the middle of a field and then found a spot vaguely near the middle of the pitch’s length because James played midfield and it saved them having to move spots when the teams swapped ends. The match began and Peter watched closely, whereas Sirius mostly just watched what James was doing because he wasn’t that fussed about sports, despite having to learn the rules of most of the major ones in school.

After a while, with not much happening in the match, Sirius turned to Peter.

‘Peter, mate, how are you doing?’ 

He knew it wasn’t subtle or careful, but he’d added in James’ favourite term ‘mate’ to try and sound more casual and less like he was descended from minor aristocracy (which his family was). Peter turned his head and looked at Sirius, seeming to weigh up what to say and whether to say it.

‘It’s noth- it’s the work, it’s…’

Peter trailed off. Sirius nodded, trying to urge him to continue. He bit his tongue to stop himself guessing Peter’s next words.

‘It’s a lot….feels like too much...and you and Remus and James seem to be fine with it all, able to get it done without feeling like you’re going to explode…’

‘Look, Peter, we find it hard too,’ Sirius started, but Peter had clearly opened up.

‘...and maybe I shouldn’t be here at all, I’m not good enough and I can’t handle it. I like Arch and Anth, but not as much as some people like their subjects, and I don’t know what hobbies to take up and I just want to stay in bed and watch DVDs.’

‘Right, Peter, first off, you’ve gotta stop comparing yourself to what everyone else is doing. You can like your subject however much you want. It doesn’t have to be your life’s passion.’ Peter didn’t look much convinced, but nodded. ‘And they let you in, so you’re good enough. The work is hard and there’s a lot of it, everyone has times when it overwhelms them. They just show it in different ways: James works out and tries to run out the stress, Remus shuts himself in the library and fails to read anything useful.’

‘What about you?’

Sirius laughed.

‘I make bad decisions.’

‘Oh.’

‘For the worry about hobbies and letting off steam, why don’t you play in the college’s fun evening football practices? James goes sometimes when he feels like a million times a week isn’t enough playing already. Sometimes they play against other colleges’ fun teams.’

‘That sounds good.’

‘And as for work, talk to people. If you’re stuck, message someone off your course and bitch about the reading or the essay. If it feels too much, moan to one of us and we’ll moan about ours in return. Don’t cut yourself off.’

Peter nodded. He was quiet for a moment, then turned back to watch the match.

‘You’re surprisingly good at that,’ he said.

‘At what?’

‘Telling me it’s all okay.’

Sirius smiled and didn’t tell Peter he was pleased to hear it, though he was. Later that day when he told James about the conversation and made him promise to take Peter to do some kind of sport at some point, he didn’t mention that part. James would laugh and tell him that obviously he was good at it, but Sirius didn’t think that was obvious. People didn’t usually come to him for advice or reassurance, until Oxford. Until he had these friends.

 

\---

 

Remus spent so much of the Easter break trying to write essays and go over old notes for the exams next term that he had little chance to feel self-conscious about having to hide from his parents that his friends knew what he was. No matter what he said, they’d think Remus had told them, not realising that it could be worked out by some very clever Oxford students with little limit on their imaginations. They hadn’t thought he should go in the first place. He’d had to spend a lot of time pointing out that the specialist had told them he should have as much of a normal life as possible. Though Remus wasn’t sure that Sirius, James, and Peter were particularly normal.

Over the holidays, Sirius kept sending him pictures of dogs that he wanted, which seemed to be most dogs. From what Remus had gathered, Sirius was spending most days walking across bits of London taking photos of dogs and taking breaks to do work in coffee shops and libraries. Once back in Oxford, Sirius did not stop with the dog obsession. James kept making comments about Sirius’ need to take care of something, which Remus thought might be true. However, the obsession was handily tempered by the fact that Sirius had an awful lot of work to be doing.

Passing their end of first year exams was the requirement to be allowed back to continue with their degrees and Sirius had drawn the short straw, as his were rumoured to be the hardest. There were a few weeks before the exams and people were all working and panicking at different paces. Sirius claimed to be fine, but spent most evenings in the Classics library and seemed to exist on a diet of kebab van chips and falafel. Remus spent a lot of time with him, but didn’t have the stamina to match Sirius. When he got back from the library, he’d still hang out with them, lounging around James’ room like he hadn’t been revising Greek for four solid hours. James had told Remus about Peter being overwhelmed with work so they both were making an effort to complain about their own work in his presence. Remus didn’t really need the motivation to complain, as there was a lot to do.

Some people were acting even weirder than them. One evening as Remus left the main university library to walk back to college, he ran into Lily Evans’ friend Severus. Remus had only seen him a few times throughout the year, mostly visiting Lily in their college, and gave a vague look of recognition as they came up to one another. Severus, however, stopped walking.

‘Something’s up with you.’

Remus did a double take and stopped.

‘What?’

He’d never really spoken to the guy before and had no idea what he was saying. James had, because James tried to be wherever Lily was so he could dazzle her with his amazing qualities, and James complained that Severus Snape was trying to sabotage his chances with Lily (Sirius had asked what chances those were, but James clearly hadn’t given up hope).

‘Something weird about you. All your friends are weird, but you’re the weirdest. Why are they so protective?’

‘What?’ said Remus again. He knew he shouldn’t engage, Severus was probably in some revision-crazed mood and didn’t really know what he was saying, but he couldn’t help it.

‘Your friends. Potter jumps to your defence even quicker than he jumps to his beloved Black’s. Something’s up.’

‘You’re crazy.’

Remus knew that Severus knew nothing. That he was weird and possibly sleep-deprived and maybe jealous of James, because James was good at football and talking to people and - even though he was only able to annoy Lily so far - could be a threat. This didn’t stop him panicking that Severus did know something, wondering what if he tried snooping around and found out more? But, Remus told himself sternly, how would he do that? They’d notice if Severus snuck onto their floor and that was really the only way to see Remus when it was the full moon. And he wouldn’t see anything in particular, not with the cocktail of drugs that stopped the physical transformation and lessened the mental one so he could, with sleeping pills, rest over the night. Still, it wasn’t meant to be safe to have unusual disruptions over that night.

‘Mark my words, you lot are trouble and I’ll find out what’s up with you.’

Remus hurried off, wondering why Severus called James and Sirius by their surnames, something he thought was mostly for sports teammates and public schoolboys. Probably resentment of some kind, he thought. Severus usually looked annoyed at everyone. It was strange that Lily Evans, who seemed like a nice kind of person from what Remus had seen - albeit a bit caught up in whatever chemistry thing she was working on - would be such good friends with him. He resolved to ask James and Sirius if they’d had some kind of confrontation with Severus or if it was all nothing.

When Remus got to their corridor, he heard some kind of commotion going on. It seemed to be coming from Sirius’ room, which was surprising because Sirius was usually in the library and unsurprising because commotion tended to come from Sirius’ room. Remus knocked - he wasn’t James - and walked in.

‘Guess what Sirius did!’ exclaimed Peter, but Remus didn’t need to guess, because walking around Sirius’ bedroom floor was a small white and brown dog. Sirius sat on the floor, trying to stop the dog chewing anything he particularly liked.

‘Dare I ask why?’ said Remus.

‘He wanted to try and sneak a dog in,’ replied James. ‘Turns out it’s not that hard to get it in, but we’re not quite sure what’s going to happen next.’

‘Return it to its owner?’

‘That’s where the problem lies.’

‘You mean…’

Sirius looked up at Remus.

‘She’s mine. I bought her. Today.’

Remus gaped.

‘How?’

‘From an advert selling puppies. Cavalier King Charles spaniels, to be precise. With probably some other spaniel in there too, they weren’t sure. She sleeps a lot, I just carried her in a bag in my arms up here.’

‘And now there’s a dog in here? An illicit dog. They’ll kick you out if they find her. Maybe us all out.’

‘Calm down, Remus, they’d only kick me out.’ Sirius grimaced. ‘Not that, for once, I want to be kicked out. But…’

‘He had a moment of insanity,’ interjected James. ‘Well, a few moments.’

Remus bent down to stroke the dog.

‘Can’t you give her back?’

‘Dogs don’t come with a 30 day exchange policy, Remus,’ Sirius said. ‘I can’t just reject Artemis like that, anyway.’

‘She’s called Artemis?’

‘Could be worse,’ said James. ‘He was considering Feargal Sharkey, but I pointed out you can’t give a dog a surname.’

‘Lead singer of the Undertones,’ Sirius muttered in Remus’ direction. 

Artemis was clearly excited to have all these new friends, though she had no idea how much she shouldn’t be there. She dashed around wagging her tail at them. Remus, James, and Peter went to dinner, but Sirius didn’t want to leave Artemis alone. When they left, he was lying front down on the floor, talking to her.

‘James, you’ve got to do something,’ said Peter once they were walking across one of the college’s quadrangles.

‘Why me?’

Peter shrugged. Remus thought about what people did with unwanted pets. What about very much wanted but very impractical pets? Give them away, perhaps.

‘Does anyone know somebody who’d like a free puppy?’ Remus asked, because he certainly didn’t. His family weren’t animal people. Peter scrunched up his face in thought, but James suddenly pulled out his phone and tapped a few buttons.

‘Hi, Mum,’ he said, without warning. ‘Bit weird, but do you and Dad want a puppy?’ She was clearly responding. ‘King Charles Spaniel, mostly. She’s- yeah, she’s Sirius’, he bought her today, but she’s against the rules.’ Another pause on James’ end. ‘Artemis. I know, but you’re lucky, could’ve been a lot more obscure.’ They’d reached the dining hall and James kept listening to his mum as he got a tray and food. Remus followed him closely in case he needed help getting anything. ‘Okay, the weekend is okay, we can handle two days. Pretend Sirius is ill or something. Right, yes, okay. Love you.’

James put his phone down on his tray and turned to Remus, giving him a look of relief.

‘She said yes?’

‘We’ve not had a dog in a few years so she decided it was time.’

‘I can’t believe any of this,’ said Peter.

After dinner, they carried a napkin of chips and the news that his dog had a home up to Sirius. He took it fairly well, though much of that was because he was already visiting James that summer, Remus thought. Whilst they were gone, he’d made Artemis a litter tray out of a plastic thing from their communal kitchen and a bed out of his spare linen (Remus was a bit shocked that Sirius had spare linen). None of the other three were very willing to leave Sirius’ room that night as their rooms didn’t involve puppies, but when they did it seemed that Artemis was going to be very happy sleeping right in the middle of Sirius’ bed. When Remus got to his room, he remembered that he was going to say something about Severus to the others, but the puppy had pushed it right out of his head.

The next two days passed remarkably uneventfully. Sirius claimed to be in bed ill except when he had classes or tutorials and then somebody else had to stay in his room with the puppy. Remus enjoyed his turns, though he felt bad that he spent a lot of the time looking around at Sirius’ stuff without him being there. Artemis mostly slept or ran around at high speed for about two minutes at a time. She chewed on Remus’ sleeve, but he held back on joking that Sirius owed him a jumper because Sirius would actually get him one.

On Saturday, James’ parents turned up and James made an unnecessary show of suggesting they’d come to visit for no reason. Sirius carried Artemis out in an open bag as he had brought her in and put her in the pet carrier that the Potters had in the back of their car. The other three watched on like it was some kind of major handover. Remus thought he saw Severus walk past and jumped, expecting some kind of comment, but none came. Maybe he’d been mistaken, he thought, and was just preparing for the worst because the whole puppy saga had gone better than it could have. He had to admit that was relative, however, when Sirius spent the evening drinking Jack and cokes in the college bar and complaining about the college’s pet ban.

‘C’mon Padfoot, go to bed. You’ve been whining for hours now,’ James said eventually, after yawning three times in a row. It was only just before midnight, but it was a tiring time and Remus had been hoping they’d leave soon.

‘Padfoot?’ Sirius seemed momentarily distracted.

‘You know how you gave us shit names based on animals? I gave you one because you keep going on about how cute her tiny paws were.’

Remus was offended that James had claimed his bad nickname was based on an animal, but couldn’t help but laugh at Sirius’ conflicted expression. 

‘Does this mean you’ve accepted yours?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Fine. Padfoot it is.’


	3. Second Year, Part One

Sirius sat on the bus to Oxford and stared at the morning traffic - expensive cars and angry taxis and buses on which everybody was probably running late. The pace was slow, as it was seven o’clock and people had work to get to and a capital city to run. He had got on the first tube not long before six and made it to the bus stop in decent time; he was content to watch the traffic and know that soon he’d be back in Oxford. In his ears, the sounds of his ‘triumphant return’ playlist (made over the summer, headphones in, whilst he sat in the public areas of the British Library and drank endless filter coffee) drowned out the man having a loud argument on his phone a few seats away. Eventually the traffic was beaten, the motorway conquered, and his return to Oxford complete.

He stopped off for breakfast in the greasy spoon in the centre of town, having sweet talked the college porters into looking after his bags if he brought them back food. Nobody would be back yet, as it was the morning of the first day they were allowed to return, so he took his time, drinking mug after mug of tea and wondering what their new rooms would look like. As second years with a lowly place on the housing ballot, their rooms were in a newer building, right by the edge of the college grounds. He’d been loath to leave his old room, which was big and had a great view of rooftops out of the window. Plus, he’d have to decorate his room pinboard again; last year’s had been a masterpiece, with rock stars and postcards of classical artifacts and photos of escapades from the year.

After a while, he walked back to college, collected his bags and new room key, and set off for the new building. They’d chosen their rooms using a floor plan to ensure Remus got the last one in the corridor, furthest from people bursting in - particularly important because they were on the first floor and the ground floor would be occupied by other people and the communal kitchen. Sirius had the one next to Remus’ and he unlocked his door with a strange feeling in his stomach. The basics were the same as the previous year - single bed, desk, drawers, wardrobe, sink - but it was also very different. Putting music on, he began to unpack and make it his own.

When he heard knocking at his door he knew it was Remus, not James who would walk straight in or Peter who tended to wait awkwardly outside and would be with his mum and siblings anyway.

‘You’re here! I was about to assume I was the only one who’d make it back,’ called out Sirius jubilantly.

Remus stepped inside and smiled, looking around at Sirius’ efforts.

‘Can’t believe you got here so early.’

‘Glad you at least saw my group messages, I thought a live update on my progress would be important to you all.’

‘Your breakfast sounded better than my train one.’

‘It was fantastic. Not quite as good as the Potters’ full English, they really know how to make a breakfast.’

‘I hope they didn’t wait on you on hand and foot for the entire time you were staying with them.’

‘Only sometimes. I’m charming, see.’ 

Sirius flicked his hair back and grinned. It was the exact move that James constantly tried and failed to pull off.

‘From what I heard, James charmed you into playing actual sports with him.’

‘Only ones that barely count, like tennis. And a lot of pool. His parents have a pool table.’

‘Yes, I did get a lot of drunk messages about a great pool tournament that I assume was only involving the two of you.’

‘Artemis cheered us on.’

‘Puppies do love pool.’

Sirius looked at Remus’ huge suitcase and then around his own unpacked room.

‘Want help unpacking?’

He expected Remus to refuse, to want to sort out his own stuff at his own pace, but Remus thought about it for a second and nodded.

‘You can at least decorate the place whilst I find where I shoved all my socks.’

 

\---

 

Somehow, James convinced his parents that he didn’t need their help sorting out his possessions and managed to say goodbye once all his bags and boxes were up the stairs. His mum gave him a ‘keep an eye on Sirius’ warning in a low voice that he knew was more of a ‘check what Sirius’ parents seem to be doing’ warning; Sirius had made enough offhand comments whilst visiting that both of James’ parents had been fairly reluctant to let him leave, despite his reassurances that he would spend much of the rest of the summer out of the house. James’ idea of unpacking was to find all the important sports gear and put it away safely, then try and transport the neatly ironed clothes into drawers seeing as none of them would be ironed again that term. Whilst doing this he could hear Peter moving in next door - or more accurately, Peter’s family debating where he should put things - but no Sirius on the other side. Sirius’ updates suggested he had left the house before any of his family got up in order to avoid them, so he had to be around somewhere.

James decided to go downstairs and check out the kitchen before seeing if Remus was in. The kitchen was decent, far better than their kettle and toaster cupboard the year before, with an actual oven and a bashed about table and four chairs so around half the people who used the kitchen could sit at it. As James left, he saw a familiar-looking girl carrying bags along the ground floor hall. For a moment, he couldn’t work out why he knew her, before realising she was one of Lily’s friends, a History student he was pretty sure Remus vaguely knew.

Hearing noises from Remus’ room, he knocked and then burst straight in.

‘Remus! Guess what? Mary Macdonald lives downstairs, surely Lily’s got to visit us now.’

‘Potter, you’re pathetic.’

James was barely surprised that it was Sirius who answered him. Sirius was lounged across Remus’ freshly made bed, surrounded by books. If he hadn’t been seeing it before his eyes, James might have guessed this was some kind of fantasy invented by Remus, who was busy battling some coat hangers.

‘Your own unpacking not enough for you?’ James asked.

‘I’m helping. I decorated Remus’ board and now I’m alphabetising his books.’

‘You’re having a lie down, that’s what you’re doing.’

‘Don’t mock me for helping out somebody with a condition that might-’

‘Are you saying werewolves can’t alphabetise their own books?’

Remus stopped sorting his clothes and laughed.

‘It was mentioned last time I saw the specialist, yes.’

‘There go your librarian chances, sorry Remus,’ said Sirius quickly. ‘Now shall we get back to James’ obsessive behaviour?’

Thankfully for James, he was saved further mockery by the timid knock of Peter, who had never learnt how to make his knocks sound less like a question he didn’t quite want the answer to.

‘Peter! Come in, we need to laugh at you next,’ invited Sirius. Peter stepped inside, looking nervous in a lime green polo shirt. ‘Wow, that’s bright.’

‘Sirius, you can’t talk to anyone about their dress sense,’ said James.

‘Alright, Mr Boring, at least I don’t have a wardrobe solely made of sportswear and beige chinos.’

James went to argue back, but he realised it was pointless: that was a large amount of his wardrobe.

‘Peter, how are you? Managed to stop your mum staying?’

Peter pulled a face.

‘She fussed over the bathroom and the stairs and god knows what else, so eventually I had to tell her that I had things to do. She wasn’t pleased.’

‘Should’ve told her you live with a werewolf. Might’ve stopped her worrying about bacteria.’

‘Sirius!’ Remus admonished, but without much force. James was sure he liked that Sirius in particular treated it like it was just another thing to make occasional jokes about.

‘But Peter,’ said James with a smirk. ‘What’s with the girl you kept mentioning in messages over the summer?’

Peter looked at his feet, blushing. James knew that Peter had been waiting for weeks to spill the beans. Remus had stopped unpacking and settled on his bed, near the end of Sirius’ line of alphabetised books.

‘Oh, just a girl from home, vaguely knew her at school. Saw her over the summer when there was an old school get together, we just had a summer thing.’

‘Just a summer thing!’ said Sirius, clearly picking up, like James, that Peter was happy, and pleased to have something exciting to share with them. ‘More than the rest of us, still. I assume, at least. Remus, no surprise flings?’

Remus shook his head. James felt this was blatant probing, but said nothing. Sirius was his best friend, even when he was being obvious.

‘Let Peter bask in the glory of his successful summer relationship, Sirius,’ James said instead. ‘Go on, Peter, tell us more.’

Peter did, spending ten minutes describing what the girl, Melanie, was like and the local events they’d been to. Remus asked a couple of questions and Peter regaled them with more anecdotes. His excitement was infectious. After a while, he stopped talking and looked a bit worried.

‘What are you guys wearing to the bop tomorrow?’ he asked, looking between the three of them as if their answer would save him.

‘James, you’ve got to be a stag,’ said Sirius loudly before James could answer. ‘Animal theme, it’s the perfect option. People will think you’re doing it for the deer park.’

James rolled his eyes at Sirius.

‘Fine. But only because you’ll be a dog.’

‘I’ll look so unoriginal.’

‘Should’ve thought of that before trying to have a secret puppy.’

‘I was thinking a mouse or something,’ Peter said. ‘I have a lot of grey stuff and that seems better than an elephant. Wouldn’t have to make a trunk.’

Nobody pointed out that a tail would be similar to a trunk. Peter was bad at costumes, unable to think up exciting ideas and lacking the effort to pull much off successfully. Sirius looked at Remus expectantly.

‘No, I’m not going as a wolf.’ 

‘Wasn’t thinking of it,’ said Sirius innocently.

‘What are you going as, then?’ asked Peter.

‘I don’t know. I’ll work something out.’

Their conversation moved from the upcoming bop to important matters like who’d done the least of their holiday work. Eventually they moved for dinner and to see if anything had changed about the college over the summer. The food in hall was largely unchanged, though James reckoned the curry was particularly good as a first day back treat. He gave Lily a grin which she did not return, but instead rolled her eyes and returned to eating. James wished he knew how to make her want to speak to him. Try as he might, he couldn’t keep his cool around her, but instead felt a need to brag and act the big man, a role he mostly played jokingly elsewhere. At least her friend Severus was at his own college.

James slept well in his new room and managed to find time in the day to make antlers in Sirius’ room before the evening. He had entered to find Peter sat on Sirius’ floor, surrounded by paper and glue sticks, intently focused on his costume creation. James had not questioned his efforts, but just started taping cardboard together. Meanwhile Sirius had been, surprisingly, doing work, though occasionally he would pause to ask if anyone knew what Remus was dressing up as yet. At dinner, Remus kept tight-lipped, which by now James thought was probably to annoy Sirius more than to keep a secret.

The plan was to go downstairs and drink before the bop in their new kitchen. James and Sirius went down first because James was hoping Lily would turn up to see Mary and he didn’t want to miss that. The other people on the ground floor greeted them enthusiastically, and James couldn’t help but bask in the attention, sharing drinking stories as they drank cheap alcohol and made comments on each others’ costumes. Wearing his contacts, which he usually only wore for sports, made James feel like he was cooler than normal, even whilst dressed as a stag. Sirius kept nipping outside to smoke; he’d started again over the summer despite having given up smoking before he left for Oxford. 

Remus came down whilst Sirius was outside and James had to bite back a laugh. It was hard to tell if his costume was to appeal to or annoy Sirius, but James hazarded a guess that it would have the former effect regardless. Remus had just started to talk to Mary and another fellow History student when a loud voice interrupted them.

‘Remus, you copied me. How kind of you.’

Remus only looked a little embarrassed as Sirius, dressed as a black dog if black dogs wore carefully fitted shirts, skinny jeans and Doc Martens, came over to poke his own brown homemade dog ears.

‘Thought I’d take the easy route, I own a lot of brown,’ shrugged Remus.

‘The easy route in solidarity with me.’

Sirius grinned. James raised his eyebrows at his best friend. Both Sirius and Remus were wearing their usual clothes in a single, doglike colour and some half-hearted ears. Sirius, who was usually big on costumes, had drawn a black nose on his own nose with the same eyeliner that was around his eyes. Remus’ entrance was soon eclipsed by Peter’s, however. James blinked and wondered if it was the same costume that he’d seen Peter making earlier, which though it had looked somewhat like an explosion, had not seemed a complete disaster.

‘Wow, Peter, what a look,’ he said. Sirius wolf-whistled.

It wasn’t that you couldn’t tell what Peter was dressed as. He was clearly some kind of rodent, though a pair of black denim jeans and a grey t-shirt weren’t enough to give that away. That prize was given to the drooping paper ears that seemed to be both larger than necessary and falling off and, as Peter walked in further, a weird, long, vaguely pink tail that hung behind him. Face paint made his face grey, though not uniformly. The overall effect was a children’s papier mache animal, the kind that would be quite scary to immediately run into.

‘I tried.’

It only took a couple more drinks before James and Sirius started calling him Wormtail, claiming that the pink, lined tail resembled a worm and would haunt their nightmares. Peter himself seemed proud of the name by the time they were at the bop and drinking terrible bulk-made cocktails from washing-up bowls. James had tried to keep finding their new housemates in the hope of running into Lily with them and talking in a more casual way, but instead he ended up going over to her every hour to tell her he was casually talking to her. After a point, he stopped remembering doing it, though afterwards Sirius would promise that it had taken both him and Remus to pull James away from her at one point. James later berated himself for getting too drunk too early and not remembering to check and see how much Sirius was gloating about Remus also dressing as a dog. He felt it might have been important.

 

\---

 

Second year turned out to be even more relentless than the first, though Remus told his parents in his weekly emails that it was actually fine and not all that much work at all. In the summer at his yearly checkup at the clinic in London, he’d insisted that his parents no longer needed to know everything the specialist said, that he was old enough to focus on managing it himself. Otherwise they’d have heard the warnings not to work too hard, to use his cover medical excuse when he was run down, and other suggestions that Remus ignored because he wanted to act like he was normal. 

Only Sirius now went to James’ Sunday football matches because Peter needed the day for sleep and trying to catch up with work, so Remus had started to turn up later on with a flask or snacks. He told himself it was to counteract the fact that Sirius had gained even more bad habits over the summer and spent a lot of time existing on little more than coffee, cigarettes, and their dinner in hall. If he’d known how to, he would’ve said something to James, but as it was he had to settle for their occasional looks at each other when Sirius made reference to his family - the kind of looks he knew James and Sirius gave each other when he said he wasn’t feeling great around the full moon.

James, meanwhile, took up an even more concerted effort to make Lily Evans notice him, which also made Remus want to say something, but in more of a ‘how the fuck do you think that will work?’ way. True to James’ hope, she did occasionally turn up in their communal kitchen or in the hallway, so the other three had been told at pain of death to notify James whenever this happened. Unfortunately, her noticing him was mostly an eye roll whenever he suddenly appeared right by her and attempted to flirt. Remus and Sirius had taken up impersonating his attempts when he wasn’t around, partly in order to stop themselves from doing so when he was around.

One of these occasions happened not in the hallway or in college but in a local ice cream place, and Remus was there to witness it in excruciating detail without reinforcements. He and James had coffee and sundaes and were waiting for Sirius to get out of a tutorial so he could join their celebration of it being Friday afternoon. Peter was in class and had declined coming afterwards in a strangely cagey manner.

‘So, Peter’s definitely got a date, right?’ said James, leaning into his mug like they were the gossiping friends in a comedy.

‘Do people even have dates?’ replied Remus. ‘I thought it was all drunken eye contact and college awkwardness.’

‘People have dates. I know people who’ve been on them. People like Peter.’

Remus raised an eyebrow.

‘And which of your other friends?’

‘Football team people. Fabian and Gideon have loads, it’s hard to walk into a pub without accidentally seeing one of them staring into someone’s eyes over a bottle of wine.’

Remus held back from complaining about how Oxford meant you knew people called ‘Gideon’ and ‘Fabian’ because his own name was a bit too weird for that, but he still wasn’t certain that James wasn’t romanticising his idea of romance.

‘Maybe Peter’s just...getting a drink with a friend.’

‘That isn’t us?’

James’ mouth shut suddenly and his head turned. Remus start to turn and see what had distracted him, but it quickly became apparent as voices came closer.

‘Like I was saying, Sev, it’s not that simple. She’s really upset she isn’t getting the grades to get in,’ said Lily, presumably unaware that her conversation would soon be interrupted.

‘It’s not your problem. She won’t get in. She doesn’t deserve to be here. She doesn’t work hard enough to even try.’

Remus, now able to see Lily and Severus near the counter and only a couple of metres away, could tell Lily was not in a good mood. That wouldn’t deter James. He waved and called out to her.

‘Lily!’ 

She turned around, quickly realising who was calling her.

‘James.’

‘You should join us.’

Unfortunately, Severus had turned around too. He glared at James.

‘She’s here with me.’

Lily shrugged. Remus wondered if she was almost considering staying to talk to James as the lesser evil than arguing with Severus. He personally would’ve taken most options that didn’t involve talking to Severus, though this was more on instinct than reason.

‘Didn’t ask you, grease face. Maybe she’s looking for an excuse to leave you for my charming company.’

Severus scoffed.

‘Charming? Your lot wouldn’t know charm if it hit you round the face. You’re all freaks, even you, fancy boy Potter thinking you’re god’s gift at football.’

Neither side had the finesse of insults down, but it was clear they were making up for it in dislike of one another.

‘At least I don’t trail around being a creep to my one friend. Why she puts up with you is beyond me.’

‘She likes me, unlike you.’ Severus laughed. ‘You’re pathetic. She’ll never even talk to you or any of your friends. I know you lot are hiding things, you’re all fucking weirdos.’

‘We’re not hiding anything,’ James lied. ‘Unlike you. Bet you’ve got some dark secrets.’

‘Severus, let’s just go,’ said Lily, giving Remus a look he thought meant ‘I’m sorry’. Severus turned and followed her out of the café.

‘What was he on about?’ asked James once he’d brooded into his melting sundae for a while. Remus remembered the other weird comments Severus had made last year and considered bringing them up, but it was probably nothing and he didn’t want to put James into a worse mood. He shrugged instead and made a vague noise. With impeccable timing, Sirius appeared beside their table.

‘Oh, James, you’ve got your “Lily refused to talk to me again” face on. Do you need a new sundae to cheer you up?’

‘Stop mocking my pain.’

‘Now, now, James, no need to lash out at us, we’re only trying to help you through this terrible illness of being unable to talk to one specific girl without sounding like a complete twat.’

It was a real sign of their friendship, Remus thought, that James only fake swiped at Sirius and ate half of Sirius’ ice cream in payment for his comment. And a sign of Sirius’ that despite all the jokes he continued to listen to James’ complaining and reassured him that he was far better than both Severus and anybody else at Christ Church or indeed any other college that wasn’t theirs.

 

\---

 

In a last-minute fit of inspiration, James invited Sirius to his house for New Year’s Eve on the final day of term. He lied that his mum had put him up to it because he knew that Sirius’ entrenched sense of social decorum would not want to disappoint her, stopping him from seeing it as a pity invite that shouldn’t actually be taken up. Sirius said yes hurriedly before rushing off because Remus had taken out what seemed like half the college library and was in denial about how he was going to lug it all on the train. Later, it turned out that Sirius had lent him a rucksack which James took to mean ‘bought a cheap spare and pretended he already owned it’.

James had mounds of notes to go over for exams when they got back and a fitness level to maintain as they had some big matches in the new year. His parents’ treadmill was set up so he could read at the same time, though they didn’t appreciate when he started saying his notes aloud. Peter sent pictures of his family’s overindulgent Christmas decorations and celebrations to their messaging group and Sirius responded by sending them photos of him in front of London landmarks with fake postcard greetings. This caused James and Remus to have a private text conversation about the fact Sirius was spending Christmas Day walking around outside. He’d even thrown in a casual ‘they’re worst when all the family drops by and they can explain in great detail how much of a disappointment I am for existing as I do’ in case they were in any doubt that it was to avoid being in the house.

Sirius turned up a few days before New Year, carrying with him everything he was taking back to Oxford. He answered James’ questioning look with ‘no major spats, kept out of the house or kept my mouth shut,’ which James believed but also knew probably wasn’t all. Over the next two days he picked up enough to work out that Sirius’ younger brother had applied to Oxford in keeping with the family tradition and had heard back just before Christmas that he had an offer from Christ Church. Sirius’ parents had used the opportunity to threaten that if Sirius didn’t do exactly as they wanted, he’d be cut off and would have to leave Oxford. Sirius’ response to this was to laugh and say he’d apply for a student loan. They’d not been pleased.

For New Year’s Eve, James’ parents were off to a party and wouldn’t be back all night. His mum had left them with a selection of cold leftovers from the festive period and a warning not to break anything particularly treasured. Artemis would be shut in the office that doubled as her bedroom so she didn’t chew on unattended items and they didn’t accidentally let her out. They walked down to the local shop and bought vast quantities of gin and bottles of tonic water (James personally wasn’t much of a gin drinker, but Sirius was and had guest privileges to pick). The cashier raised her eyebrows and asked if they were having a party. Once home, they devoured the leftovers and Sirius set up what he termed ‘the perfect New Year playlist,’ which he’d apparently been making for weeks.

Gin and tonics in hand, they played snap with a deck of cards and then invented ‘cheating snap’ which turned into a fairly violent battle for who could yell ‘snap!’ and then dive at the other person to stop them checking. Whilst Sirius went out to smoke, James made Russian roulette shots using food colouring and Tabasco randomly put into some cheap vodka, which were consumed quickly. The wild dancing was inevitable and they kept it up for a surprisingly long time which James put down to the playlist and not to the alcohol as neither of them was particularly drunk. Sirius’ next fag break was surprisingly long and James stuck his head out the back door to hear talking, which he realised was Sirius on the phone after a moment of thinking there was a garden intruder.

‘Can’t believe you’re at a party.’ James, unable to hear the other end, could only guess who it was. ‘Fair, that hardly sounds like a party at all, I think me and James are having a wilder time.’ Though it was freezing with the door open, James couldn’t help but keep listening so he could find out if he was right. ‘You’d better be resisting her advances, can’t have you suddenly being lucky with the ladies.’ Mate, James thought, be a little less obvious. ‘Or men or anyone else. There’s a solidarity we have, me and you, and old Potter though he’s infatuated. Pathetically single.’ Pathetically obvious, mouthed James to the night sky. ‘Fine, I suppose you had better get back to your party, I’d better get back to James or he’ll think I set myself on fire out here.’ James started to move back inside the door. ‘Almost happy new year to you too, Moony.’ The door creaked as he pushed it. ‘Yes, I will keep calling you that. Will text you later.’

James dashed away from the door and pretended to be busy refilling their drinks.

Sirius came back in with a grin and a cough. They put the TV on ready for the bells and started talking drunken shit about Oxford people and scandal. It was a topic they were both surprisingly adept at.

‘Definitely nobody has actually slept with the kebab van guy for free food, that’s just one of those rumours everyone shares,’ James insisted.

‘But where to do rumours come from?’

‘People’s twisted imaginations, easy. We should start more rumours.’

‘Other than the one that we’re sleeping together?’

‘Since when was that a rumour?’

‘You clearly don’t listen to the right people. To be fair I’ve also heard that me and Remus are sleeping together so maybe it’s just something about me.’

‘Or you’re making all these up.’

‘I have no desire to shag you.’

‘Never said you did.’ James didn’t point out who Sirius had also failed to claim he didn’t want to shag, because he was holding that one until the right moment. ‘Thought it was established that the sporty type is not for you.’

‘Or maybe you’re just a speccy git with terrible hair. Or both. Still, I don’t choose my best friend for attractiveness. Don’t want to be upstaged.’

‘Don’t insult me in my own home.’

‘Why, because your mummy will come and tell me off? We both know she’d probably agree.’ James shrugged, accepting the truth. ‘Did you hear about the blog that shady twat Tom Riddle’s apparently made?’

‘That’s just a rumour as well, there’s no name on that blog.’

‘Because even some old tutor like him would get fired for saying that Oxford needs to go back to the good old days and be more selective with who it lets in.’

‘I dunno, I’ve heard he says some pretty outrageous things in person and gets away with it.’ Suddenly, James looked at the TV screen. ‘Three minutes! Quick, refresh the drinks, make your peace with the old year, get fucking ready.’

They both ran around sloshing gin and tonic into their glasses and getting in place in front of the TV in order to dramatically clink glasses, down their drinks, and then scream ‘Happy New Year!’ at the tops of their voices. They joined in with ‘Auld Lang Syne’ that the BBC had kindly played so they didn’t have to accurately remember the tune themselves and then Sirius kissed James on the lips.

‘Yuck, I was right. But hey, new year kiss and all that.’

‘Thanks,’ replied James, but banging sounds were coming from outside so they rushed out, only pausing for Sirius to grab his leather jacket with a cigarette packet poking out of the pocket.

‘Fireworks!’

The other end of the garden had a better view so they raced down there and stood making suitable noises of awe until there seemed to be no more.

‘Why didn’t we get fireworks?’ asked Sirius, sitting down on the grass and pulling out a cigarette and his lighter.

‘Because we’re idiots. Next year, though.’

James sat down too, drunk enough to note that the grass was damp but not actually care.

‘Maybe next year we should invite the other two.’

‘If Peter’s not trying to get with some girl. Though if he has a girlfriend then we could always invite her.’

‘No, I know what this is, this is your loophole for claiming you can invite Lily Evans even if she still doesn’t talk to you this time next year.’

‘She talks to me.’

‘To say “hello” and then look for an escape. Or sometimes to tell you to shut up.’

‘You can’t say anything!’ Sirius stared at him. James gestured wildly. ‘You called Remus earlier, didn’t you?’

‘How-’

‘Stuck my head out the back door to check you were still alive. No excuses, you were unnecessarily calling him and telling him to watch out for the advances of some girl.’

‘Some girl his parents were clearly trying to set him up with, forcing him to come with them to her parents’ party. That’s not fair.’

‘They’re not your parents. They’re trying. Can’t be easy having a werewolf as a son.’

‘I suppose not. But what if Remus can’t protect himself from her advances?’

‘Mate, he does a pretty good job the rest of the time rejecting people’s advances.’ Sirius blew out smoke and gaped at James. ‘You’ve never seen him do it? He’s very polite and awkward, it’s funny to watch.’

‘Why haven’t I noticed? I thought he was as useless as us in the love life department.’

‘I’m not saying he isn’t. But he knows how to make it clear he’s not interested. So are you, though you don’t know it because you just breeze through oblivious and flirt because you think you look cool doing it.’

‘So he could have whoever he wants?’

James looked at Sirius’ dejected expression and wanted to laugh, but somehow his drunk brain knew not to, knew that it wouldn’t take much to get Sirius to admit the truth.

‘You should just tell him, you know, and then you wouldn’t have to worry about this.’

‘Oh yes, I’m sure “Hi Remus, I’m in love with you, shall we chat about that?” would go down a treat. He doesn’t even talk about who he’s interested in or whether he knows who that is, how would I even know there’s a hope?’

James gaped and not only at the obliviousness.

‘You’re in love with him? Wow, I was expecting you to admit a crush or something, not to a committed emotional statement.’

Sirius stubbed out his cigarette on a plant pot and looked up at the sky.

‘Yeah.’

‘Is this the point when you tell me about how amazing he is and out of your league and then I convince you otherwise as is my best friend duty?’

Sirius didn’t say anything for a moment and James wondered whether he’d passed over into too drunk for the conversation. The sound of cars, people going home after parties, came from the distance. Sirius picked at the grass.

‘He has a tattoo, you know?’

James’ eyes widened.

‘How on earth did you find that out? I’ve never seen him in anything less than a short sleeved t-shirt.’

Sirius laughed.

‘Glad to know you pay attention to that sort of thing. But yeah. You were drunk, y’know, start of term? We had to follow you around making sure you didn’t piss off Lily so much she’d never speak to you again?’

‘I remember the occasion.’

‘Well, we took you home to shut you up. And I wasn’t tired so I told Remus he could come hang out in my room for a bit if he wanted. So he did and we drank some whisky and I put on some Bowie and danced around-’

‘-is that your solution for everything?’

‘Hush. Anyway he got too warm and he was wearing the brown jumper to be a dog, right? So he took it off but it pulled up his t-shirt and there on his chest-’

‘-which you were obviously looking at-’

‘-was a fucking star tattoo. And I was like “what the hell?” and he told me that I didn’t have a monopoly on rebellion.’

‘And then you exploded and now you’re actually a ghost unable to deal with such a fact?’

‘No, dickhead, and then I told him that rebellion was very attractive and he blushed and not long after that we fell asleep on the floor.’

‘That’s fairly close to my version.’ Sirius pouted. ‘So, basically, you’re in love with a secretly rebellious werewolf who you’re too blind to see is clearly attracted to you?’

‘I would question some of those details.’

‘I wouldn’t. C’mon, let’s go inside. It’s freezing and you’ve done your confession for the year.’

 

\---

 

Remus’ parents had started up a new vein of protectiveness over the holidays: commenting on how exhausted he seemed and asking if he was really able to balance Oxford with his condition. He had bitten back the ‘it’s not a condition, it’s being a fucking werewolf’, which sounded far more like Sirius than him, and repeatedly stated that everyone was tired after term ended, which was true. He was so glad to be back that he didn’t even mind that his holiday essays hadn’t gone as well as he’d hoped. He knew he was better than Peter at least, who had claimed before the break that he was going to get all his work done before Christmas and then had been in the library on the first day back trying to get work finished before his deadline the next day. As ever, neither James nor Sirius showed particularly much strain with their work, though Remus had a suspicion that in Sirius’ case it was due to the fact that he usually did more work over the holidays than the term, partly to spite his parents. They both had emphasised how wild their time together over the new year was, though Remus had been given a constant stream of updates from Sirius and knew that they had watched an awful lot of daytime TV and Sirius had attempted to style James’ hair into something less unruly (it hadn’t worked, if the pictures were anything to go by).

Peter kept fussing that he was nearly halfway through his degree and hadn’t got anything to show for it. So was Remus, but he felt strangely calm about the fact, possibly because he’d never been able to imagine doing something so normal once he’d left school, a place he’d spent a lot of time at home ‘ill’ from because his mum thought he needed more rest. James and Sirius were doing four year long courses and were unable to offer much to help Peter other than telling him at least he had a year less work to do. Remus wondered vaguely if he could stay in Oxford after he was finished and still see them, but it was too far away for him to see even leaving as a real concept.

Sirius didn’t seem to have settled down after the break, not as far as Remus could tell. He still messaged Remus almost as much as he had over the holidays when they weren’t actually together, which Remus was far too pleased with. However, he also spent a lot of time going for marching walks around Oxford and smoking, even though the weather was mostly freezing. His messages had included enough updates about his parents and his brother that Remus knew the basic picture, but he wondered if there was more keeping Sirius acting weird. He didn’t ask James, who he assumed could’ve told him the answer, because he felt like that wasn’t fair to Sirius who should be able to tell Remus himself if he wanted to.

On Valentine’s Day, they arranged a suitable response to what Sirius called ‘the capitalist bullshit of a holiday invented by card companies’, which was to have dinner together in their communal kitchen and, in James’ words, ‘complain about the very concept of love’. Remus had a suspicion he was hoping that Lily might be visiting Mary or that Mary might see poor pathetic James Potter and tell her friend what she’d seen. Sirius surprised them all by insisting that he would cook despite showing no inclination to do any cooking for the past year and a half of eating their meals in the college dining hall. He banished them all from the kitchen, but then allowed Remus to sneak back in after a couple of hint-laden messages; Remus was intrigued as to whether Sirius could actually cook or not.

The answer was that he could because he had taken a bonus cookery course that his sixth form had offered and practised on nights when his parents were out at some important dinner. Sirius told him this whilst chopping garlic and drinking red wine, which Remus wasn’t certain was a safe combination. He was roped into helping by passing Sirius things and listening to his commentary as if he was a celebrity chef, all the while drinking his own glass of wine. By the time James and Peter turned up, he had almost forgotten they were going to. James threw Sirius a look that Remus guessed was ‘can’t believe you can cook’ and raised his glass to toast the garlic bread that had just come out of the oven.

The carbonara was delicious and the three of them praised Sirius until he gave a mock Oscar winner speech thanking the kitchen utensils. James and Peter started up complaining about the impossibility of finding a good relationship; Peter hadn’t had much luck at staying with one girl more than a few weeks at a time despite seeming more successful than the rest of them.

‘If I made you a historical feast would you come?’

Remus jumped as he had zoned out, sleepy with food and wine, and Sirius’ voice had cut through his haze.

‘Depends how good it was.’

‘It would be themed. Maybe some many bird roast like the Tudors did. Some lovely medieval snacks, that kind of thing. Or could just be Greek food and we can assume my subject is better.’

‘You can cook me anything.’

Whether it was his content stomach or something else talking, Remus wasn’t sure, but Sirius was beaming at him so he felt like he’d given the right answer. The rest of the evening passed with them all forgetting their supposed purpose for the evening and playing a game of Monopoly that they found in a kitchen cupboard. Frank from downstairs came in to make coffee and offered them all game hints, claiming that his family played a lot of Monopoly. Even with the hints, Peter went bankrupt fairly quickly and James let him become his business manager. Sirius clung on by making increasingly reckless and terrible choices until he was offering to trade his eternal service for a £10 rent charge. Remus said yes because it was funny to see James’ outrage at the trade and then let Sirius move his piece around the board and threaten James whenever he owed Remus money. Remus went to bed tipsy on wine and wondering if any non-single people could’ve had as good a Valentine’s Day.

 

\---

 

Sirius didn’t enjoy waking up to an email from his mum regardless of the subject, but when it was a thinly veiled ultimatum about how if she heard of him doing anything that might affect the family’s reputation he would no longer be a part of the family or their money, he almost gave up on getting up and went straight back to sleep. Instead he went downstairs in a pair of pyjama bottoms and his leather jacket to have a cigarette. There were enough cousins and distant relatives and children of his parents’ friends at or around Oxford for him to know that this wasn’t an empty threat. Whilst outside, he texted James ‘bitch threatening me again, like I’m scared of not being part of the Black family’ and sent it before he could reconsider and not tell anybody.

Back inside, he dressed in all black like it was an ironic statement and set off for his Greek class. Afterwards he went to the classics library and read for the two essays he needed to write, keeping his phone on silent in his pocket so he didn’t have to deal with talking to anyone. When it got late enough for dinner, he packed up his stuff and bought a sandwich from the nearby supermarket to eat as he walked to a pub that nobody he knew frequently visited. A pint and more reading. He’d go home soon, he decided, but for now he wanted to brood. He’d looked at his phone after the library and seen that both James and Remus were asking where he was, but hoped that they’d just assume he was busy working. He was, really. Amongst other things.

Eventually he put the books down, but bought a second pint. He went outside and glared at the ground whilst he smoked. Soon, he knew, he’d feel like he’d rinsed enough of his family out of his system. When he could feel them coursing through his veins, it made him want to rip them out somehow, how could they hate him for being everything he was? Make his brother think he was the devil just because he couldn’t stand their stuck-up, prejudiced ways and their false sense of decorum hiding how horrible they really were. They’d always be there, holding something over his head, trapping him.

He went back indoors and saw that people had taken the table he had been sitting at, a group who looked familiar in their resemblance to the kind of people his parents liked. Scowling, he headed towards the bar to drain the last of his pint and head off home. The pub wasn’t busy, but there were enough people around that he almost walked into someone, stepping backwards and trying to stop himself from spilling his drink on them or himself.

‘Sorry,’ he muttered automatically, then looked up. It was Severus Snape, Lily Evans’ Christ Church friend who James had apparently nearly started a fight with. Unable to take back his apology, he merely stood and stared in annoyance.

‘Black,’ said Severus. ‘Funny to see you here alone.’

‘I could say the same about you,’ replied Sirius, not really sure where this was going. Sure, Sirius didn’t like the guy, and would happily get in a jibe or two for James, but something about his tone suggested that he wanted to go after Sirius.

‘I’m not alone.’ He gestured towards Sirius’ old table. ‘I have friends.’

Sirius could see now that the people gathered around the table were a creepy Christ Church bunch that he was aware of through other people for their eccentric conservatism and tendency to argue against any progressive measures the university was even slightly considering to put through. He’d known that Severus was weird and argumentative, but he hadn’t realised he was part of that lot. The part of him still dwelling on his mother’s email grew to anger.

‘Does Lily know you keep such terrible company? Or do you keep that quiet from your so-called best pal?’

Severus scowled.

‘You keep worse. That Potter’s an egotistical maniac and something’s up with Lupin for sure. I tried to ask him what once and he was very quiet. Should tell him to be more open with people.’

‘Leave him alone.’

Sirius drained his glass and stepped closer to Severus, hoping he seemed threatening. He still wasn’t certain what was going on, other than Severus being very strange.

‘Always ill every month, I hear. Lily said nobody knows what’s up with him. Something catching, maybe?’

Sirius gritted his teeth. He didn’t question how Severus had an impressive knowledge of Remus being ill; he wasn’t thinking carefully enough for that.

‘You don’t know anything.’

‘Don’t I, you little fucking poof? See, I know that. And your pathetic best friend’s pathetic crush on Lily. She’ll never even tolerate him.’

‘Don’t know how she tolerates you, you slimy cunt. Leave my friends alone.’

‘I’ll say what I like about you and your friends, you’re a bunch of fucking freaks. Bet your family’s overjoyed.’ Sirius stared in shock. He had no idea how Severus Snape knew anything about his family. ‘Oh, did I touch a nerve? See, my friends, unlike yours, are good at sharing secrets, and we have a few connections to people who know you. Your cousin Bella? She pops by, fills us in on what you’re not telling anybody. All those schools. It’s amazing you were ever let in here at all.’

‘She’s a fucking liar.’

‘Oh, now who’s the liar? Do your friends know you’re such a liar? Or do you fit in there? Potter pretending to be a nice person and Pettigrew pretending to be equal to you others. And Lupin, whatever’s going on with him…’

Sirius was beyond thinking about what he was saying.

‘You want to know so badly? Drop by tomorrow night, you’ll find out.’

‘What’s that? An invitation? A threat?’

‘It’s my fucking cue to leave.’

Sirius slammed his glass down on the bar and stormed out the door. The calm he had hoped for was a far-off dream now, his veins pumping with anger at Severus Snape and at himself for not thinking of anything good to say. He doubted that Severus would take anything from his comment about the following night, which he wasn’t actually lying about, and Severus didn’t know where they lived anyway. He was remarkably well-informed on everything else, however, and Sirius wondered quite how far that nasty group of friends’ influence might reach. He had vaguely known that his cousins knew people like that, but didn’t realise that he was ever the subject of their conversations. Walking furiously around the centre of town a couple of times, he tried to breathe more slowly and remember that Severus was all bark and no bite. 

When he got home, he was met by James, Remus, and Peter all sitting on their first floor landing looking reproachful.

‘Just needed to let off steam.’

They nodded. He didn’t elaborate. He listened to their conversations and hardly joined in, but once Peter and Remus had gone off to bed and James was still sitting there looking at him, he spoke again.

‘Severus Snape. Met him in the pub. He’s a fucking nasty piece of work.’

James urged him to continue and he told the story, trying to downplay what he had said before he left. James looked worried, but tried to assert that Sirius was right, Severus didn’t know where they lived and couldn’t get in. Regardless, he promised Sirius that he would be in his room the whole night just in case. Sirius had promised a tutor to be at an evening talk, but resolved to hurry back afterwards just in case. Not that anything would happen, they agreed. Eventually they stood up to go to bed themselves, but James paused.

‘They’re wrong about you, you know. You’re not how they see you. You’re much better.’


	4. Second Year, Part Two

Lily was starting to really lack the time and motivation to hang out with Severus. He’d always been a draining kind of friend, right from when they’d met in their local branch of Waterstones, both desperately searching for books relevant to their academic interests on the shelves near the back, out of the way of the fiction. He was always spouting his views, telling her how to think and do things, sometimes outright ignoring what she was saying. Regardless, she’d needed a local friend who was clever, whose mum was a teacher who was encouraging him to apply to Oxford, and through this, encouraging her, with Severus insisting that she was clever enough and that her terrible school would only add to her application. He had continued in this role even once she was there and no longer needed his opinions. It was getting hard to explain to her other friends why this weird computer science student - who insulted them to their faces and often openly discarded Lily’s views in company - was someone she spent time with.

After he had pestered her via text for three straight hours when she was supposed to be in labs, she eventually agreed to meet him for coffee at lunchtime, forgoing the usual Chemistry student bitch session that kept them going until dinner. He seemed odder than usual, distracted somehow, but she assumed it was those awful friends of his, the ones who thought she was working class scum and didn’t seem to clock that Severus shouldn’t be much higher up in their esteem.

‘Do you know where Potter lives?’ Severus suddenly asked, tapping on his cappuccino.

‘Yeah,’ she replied, confused. Severus looked impatient.

‘Where?’

‘Why do you care?’

‘Why are you defending him? You hate him.’

Lily glared at him.

‘One, I’m not defending him, I’m just asking why you want to know, and two, I don’t hate him, hate’s a very strong emotion, I just think he’s annoying. You don’t need to hate someone just because you don’t actively like them.’

She hoped that Severus would see her words as a comment on him and his tendency to hate anyone he didn’t like. She wasn’t sure why he called a lot of people by their last names, but she knew it was in contempt at least. Or maybe some sense that it made him sound more like his awful friends.

‘He’s an arrogant wanker and his friends are freaks.’ He paused. ‘I’m just interested where he lives, I heard someone talking about it.’

‘Well...he lives in the same house as Mary, round the back of college, the one next to the gated driveway. She complains that they’re always charging along the landing upstairs, but otherwise, doesn’t seem to mind living near them.’

Severus looked triumphant and Lily worried that he was planning something. She had no time to dwell on it, however, as she needed to get back to the chemistry department before she was late. She said a hurried goodbye and hoped that Severus really was just curious.

 

\---

 

James was half-heartedly trying to do a problem sheet when he heard footsteps on the stairs. The front door had opened moments previously, but as he’d heard someone walking down the hall and opening it from the inside, he hadn’t thought it posed any issue. He had forgotten that when a door was opened, it was possible for more than one person to go through it. Peter was at the library and Sirius still at a talk so it could have been either of them, but James knew he couldn’t leave it to chance. He peeked through his own slightly ajar door and couldn’t see anything because it wasn’t the right angle. The creaking of the stairs was slow, methodical. James knew that Remus was curled up in his room with the door locked, letting his huge pile of medication get him through the night. He also knew that many of the drugs, particularly those which helped to calm the mental transformation but were unable to allow Remus to be around anybody during that night, were fairly experimental and only approved because the condition was so secretive and otherwise untreatable. What would happen if Severus Snape did start banging on the door or anything else, it wasn’t certain.

When he heard the footsteps reach the landing, James did not hesitate. Speed and agility on his side, he burst out of his door and dived onto the figure that was just rounding the corner. There was a thud as their head hit the wall and a ‘fuck off’ that left James in no doubt that he’d caught the right intruder. James kept him pinned down and looked right at Severus. He didn’t ask why Severus was there. His voice was low and quiet.

‘Remus is no weirder than me, and significantly less than you. He is very ill sometimes and can’t be disturbed or he will get much worse. He deserves his privacy. You ever try and break in here again, you keep threatening Remus or asking about what you think is apparently wrong with him, you do anything towards him that I don’t like, and I promise that I will not let you go with only a sore head.’ Severus opened his mouth, possibly to taunt or question, so James kneed him without thinking. ‘Remember, I work out daily, have a well-aimed kick, and I am very protective of my friends. Got it?’

Severus, perhaps seeing the truth in James’ eyes, nodded. James removed his weight from keeping Severus on the ground, but didn’t move enough to give him space to move forward, only back down the stairs. Slowly, Severus retreated, not quite meeting James’ look. It was handy, James thought, that he was clearly such a coward despite all his big words. He waited for Severus to shut the front door behind him and then punched the wall.

‘Fuck’s sake, Sirius.’

He went back into his room, picked up his phone and a jacket, and went downstairs to check that nobody had heard him and Severus. Seeing nobody around, he went outside and settled onto the wall. He needed to catch Sirius before he went inside. Luckily it didn’t take too long because James was starting to freeze, though he forgot the cold as he saw Sirius walking quickly down the pavement. The nearby streetlight lit up the fear in his eyes, but it wasn’t enough.

‘You’re a complete fucking bastard, you know that right?’ he said as loudly as he felt he could get away with on the street. Sirius kept walking until he was near James on the wall, but said nothing. ‘He came up the stairs and I had to threaten to rip him apart. You’d better hope he realised I wasn’t joking.’

‘Fuck.’

‘Yeah. Fuck indeed. Maybe next time you fucking think, hey? Before putting your friends in danger and potentially ruining their lives just because you can’t think of a better comeback.’

‘I-’ started Sirius, but he trailed off.

‘Tomorrow morning I’m skipping my lecture to tell Remus what happened. He has to know in case Severus does anything else and because he deserves to know what you did.’ Sirius nodded, face expressionless but clearly under great strain to be so. ‘You better not be in the house then. Or, I suggest, around Remus for a while once he knows.’

‘Yeah.’

Sirius turned to leave, but James wasn’t going to let him skulk around the city all night and cause even more problems.

‘No. Go to bed. Get up early, go out, work it out from there.’

Sirius said nothing but started towards the door, James following him. James tailed him upstairs, wondering if Sirius would try and defend himself, but not expecting him to. Just before Sirius unlocked his bedroom door, he turned and looked at James.

‘You said it was fine yesterday.’

It wasn’t accusatory. It was guilty, definitely, and upset and possibly other things that James couldn’t work out.

‘Yesterday I was trying to convince you and myself that it was nothing. But it clearly fucking wasn’t. So now I think you’re a shite friend, for the time being.’

He didn’t need to tell Sirius to think about what he had done because Sirius was certain to brood for a long time. Instead he turned and went inside his room to get his problems sheet done and sleep before he had to break it to one of his best friends that another of their best friends had nearly caused a massive fucking disaster. 

The next morning he heard Sirius leaving his room whilst James was getting dressed. He went for a run and returned with coffee and a pastry in hand to talk to Remus, who wouldn’t be at his best. If he could have, he would’ve waited until Remus was feeling better, but he knew that the longer he waited, the longer it would seem like he was trying to cover up what Sirius had done. Instead he texted Remus to ask if he could come and talk to him. It took fifteen minutes to get a reply: _as long as you don’t expect me to be presentable_. James knocked and heard the door being unlocked. Remus appeared, wearing pyjamas and a hoodie and looking pale.

‘Alright, James.’

‘How are you?’ asked James, stepping inside. Remus sat down on his bed before answering.

‘Could be worse. Headache, as usual. Disorientated. You know, general feeling like my body wanted to rip itself apart and then wasn’t allowed to.’

James knew that usually it was Sirius who heard this stuff, who spent time around Remus whilst he recovered, and he felt guilty for being the one to reveal that this was unlikely to be the case this time.

‘Listen, Remus, I...er…need to tell you something.’

Remus’ eyes went wide and panicked and James wished there could’ve been a better way to broach the subject.

‘Did I...did something…’

‘No, no, no, it’s not you at all, you’re golden, you’re fine, you’re…’ James realised he was rambling. ‘It’s not you. It’s...it’s what Sirius did. You know how yesterday he disappeared, then came back claiming it was all fine?’

‘Yeah.’ 

Remus looked worried in a different way now and again James felt guilty. Remus had no idea that the thing Sirius had done wasn’t bad to himself, but to Remus. Carefully, he explained what had happened, from what he knew of Severus in the pub to James telling Sirius to stay out of the way. Remus’ face went through so many changes that James couldn’t keep track, especially not whilst he was talking, but when he finished speaking there was silence and Remus looked stunned. He took a moment to speak.

‘You...threatened Severus if he ever came back?’

James nodded.

‘Or did anything that I thought was negative towards you. In any way. So you have to tell me if he does. I don’t care if it makes you feel bad or guilty, I need to know. My threat can’t be in vain. And you must stay protected.’

Remus thankfully did not argue that he didn’t need to be protected. Instead he looked down at his hands.

‘I don’t know what to do,’ he admitted after another silence.

‘You don’t need to do anything. I’ll keep Sirius out of your way whilst you think about it. Indefinitely, if that’s what you want. I’ll tell Peter so he’s in the loop. Please blame Sirius all you want because he acted like a complete twat. Just remember one thing: he wasn’t doing it to hurt you and it’s not your fault, it’s not something you did wrong. He was just being a dick and dealing with his own shit badly. That’s not on you.’

James left and went to his next lecture, claiming that he’d been unwell earlier and had dragged himself along to this one. He spent the rest of the day hoping he’d said the right thing to Remus and hadn’t made things even worse. Before dinner, he quickly filled Peter in on the situation and told him not to talk about it unless Remus did. Instead they spent dinner discussing whether any of the films currently showing in the cinema might be worth seeing and trying to ignore the fact that Sirius wasn’t there. James felt like people were probably staring and wondering why Sirius had been missing for two nights in a row, certain that everyone must have noticed, but he also knew that it was likely to continue for more than those two nights.

For the following week or so, a routine settled. James met Sirius in the hallway early in the morning and they drank coffee in the kitchen before James left and Sirius mostly went to the library because he had far fewer 9 a.m. starts than James. As a humanities student Remus was basically never up and out at that time so it was fine for Sirius to be around. James would go to dinner in college with Remus and Peter like they usually did and by the time they returned, it would be clear to James that Sirius was back in his room, mostly because he could hear his music through the wall. Presumably Remus could too, but he didn’t remark upon it and obviously knew that Sirius was sometimes in his room and not sleeping on the streets. Sometimes James would go into Sirius’ room and hang out with him, partly because he knew that leaving Sirius alone when he felt guilty and angry at his family was akin to leaving a ticking bomb next door, but Sirius never came bursting into James’ room like he usually did. Sirius’ room was a complete mess every time, with most of his possessions strewn across the floor.

All James could do was to tell Sirius to give Remus time to work out what his response was and to tell Remus that it was up to him. Peter looked anxious whenever there was any hint of trouble and had barely seen Sirius because Sirius was avoiding being anywhere that wasn’t his own room, any contact hours he had with tutors or in lectures, and the classics library. There was basically no way that James could, in a terrible imitation of his own mother, make sure that Sirius was existing on much more than guilt and cigarettes, but he tried regardless, eventually pointing out that regardless how angry or sad Remus was with Sirius, he wouldn’t actually want him to keel over, he was far too nice a person for that.

One morning James ran into Lily as he was leaving a tutorial and, without thinking about it, yelled at her. 

‘You should really think about who you disclose important information to. Like where people live. That’s private.’

She looked confused for a moment, then seemed to realise.

‘Severus…‘ she said in a disappointed tone. James couldn’t elaborate a large amount without revealing too much about Remus, but he did tell her that he valued his friends too much to allow hatred to get close to them. It was cryptic and clearly not useful, but he felt marginally better for having admitted that he knew how Severus had found out where they lived. Lily had known exactly what he was talking about, after all.

 

\---

 

Remus didn’t feel that he handled the first time he ran into Sirius after what he was mentally calling ‘The Incident’ particularly well. Entirely by accident, Sirius was leaving a tutorial as Remus was walking across a quad and as they both turned the corner, there they were, face to face. Remus slept badly and was not prepared. If he had been, he might have asked for Sirius to explain and kept a level head, especially as he knew from James that Severus had been saying some things about Sirius in the pub too. However, he was off guard and found himself full of indescribable emotion.

‘Thanks for being such a great friend,’ Remus said, with malice he’d hitherto not realised he could muster in his voice. They stopped in front of each other, close enough to talk without being particularly overheard.

‘I didn’t mean to…’ Sirius responded, sounding startled, but Remus was angry at him and angry that Sirius had no better defence prepared.

‘That doesn’t fucking matter. It’s what you do that matters. And what did you do? Fuck things up.’

Remus hadn’t realised he was holding so much bitterness inside him, but now that it was coming out, he couldn’t stop talking, especially because Sirius was barely trying to respond.

‘I-’

‘You are a fucking privileged rich boy who can’t understand what it’s like to be anyone else. “Oh no, nobody could be in danger, I only said a few words to someone slimy and malicious who I should’ve ignored.” Having all that money doesn’t mean you don’t need to fucking think every now and then.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re sorry? I’m sorry I ever thought you knowing my secret wouldn’t end in complete disaster. You’re lucky James has the ability to throw out threats and make them believable.’

‘I know,’ said Sirius quietly and then before Remus could say any more, he’d run away, literally ran, and Remus, his anger dissipated by his words, didn’t have the energy to follow him. Remus knew that he should tell James what had happened because James was trying to do something useful about the whole situation, but he didn’t want to admit that he’d simply let out all his anger and not even given Sirius a particularly good explanation of why he was so angry. It wasn’t the potential danger of what Sirius had done, not really, because Remus knew that it was difficult to believe that Severus Snape was actually a threat and not just some jealous, hateful boy who couldn’t grow up enough to be nice to people who didn’t agree with him. 

What made him feel terrible was the sense that Sirius had let him down, had not acted like a friend and not like the person who would sit in silence beside Remus after a full moon without the need to talk, but like the reckless, imperfect person that Sirius also was. Sirius had done a bad thing and Remus wasn’t happy with that, but he also wasn’t happy with the world for proving that he had been living in a bubble if he thought things would all be okay. Of course, he knew that the world was complicated and not okay, he knew that they all had problems and worries, but he’d been trying to pretend and now he couldn’t.

The next few days, he tried to write down something to say to Sirius, something more thought-out that would get across why he was hurt. It was hard to compose, especially when his tutors had apparently decided it was time for a barrage of essays and reading. He didn’t want to ask James, who was looking stressed and trying to hide it, or Peter, who wasn’t able to hide how anxious he was, for help, partly because he didn’t want to explain to them how complicated his feelings about it all were. How complicated his feelings for Sirius had been even before this. On Sunday he assumed that Sirius was out watching James play football and that is would be fine for him to venture out to eat brunch in college and try and finalise what he might say to Sirius. Instead, he opened his door to find Sirius sitting on the floor of the hallway.

‘Take this,’ said Sirius, before Remus could say anything. He was holding out something in his hand. Remus immediately thought it must be the wolf necklace that he’d bought Sirius in first year, before actually looking at the small object.

‘What’s that?’

‘My debit card and my PIN. Now you can take out all my money if you wanted. See, it’s not who I am. You could stop it being who I am. You can take all my money as recompense.’

‘Sirius, I…’

‘I am not them. I refuse to be. And now that I’ve acted like them, I thought you’d better take away the means.’

Remus gaped. So much for a reasoned reaction, he thought.

‘I don’t think you’re like your family.’

‘I was wrapped up in myself and I put you in danger. I didn’t think about the fucking consequences. That’s not good.’

‘It’s not awful either. It just is.’ Sirius stared at him. ‘Come in. We probably need to talk.’

Sirius followed Remus back into his room. Remus panicked that the bit of paper on which he was drafting what he would say to Sirius was visible, but Sirius just stood in the middle of the room, debit card still in his hand, looking at Remus as if he expected the worst. A vast silence hung between them. Remus wanted to speak, but also he wanted to wait, to let Sirius say something first.

‘I didn’t think Severus would do anything,’ said Sirius eventually.

‘I know.’

‘I didn’t want anything bad to happen, you know that, right? I...I just...I wasn’t thinking straight.’

‘Do you ever?’ slipped from Remus’s lips before he could stop himself. Sirius made an odd, slightly hysterical laugh.

‘Never.’ He smiled slightly, then seemed to remember the occasion. ‘It’s not an excuse. You can’t do bad things because you’re having a bad day. But I didn’t quite realise it was a bad thing, not at the time. He…’ Sirius trailed off. Remus tried to give an encouraging look. ‘He said things about me. And about what my cousin had apparently told him. It wasn’t...what I expected. I didn’t know I was talked about.’

‘James told me. I know it wasn’t...the circumstances were unusual. You didn’t go out to almost betray my biggest secret.’ He half smiled to show that was slightly flippant. Sirius still looked like he must combust with guilt at any moment. ‘Look, it was a stupid thing to do and I needed time to think about it all, because it’s not easy when you wake up after a full moon to find James Potter explaining how things have almost gone to shit, but it was averted. James won’t let Severus do anything now without finding some way to stop him. And I’m sure you won’t either.’

‘Of course. Though James is more physically fit than me so he should probably be first pick. I’ll accept that amongst friends.’

‘That’s true. Though only in a fitness way, of course, I’m not saying he’s more fit than you in a-’

‘Good. He’s not.’

Remus blushed. He paused for a moment, fiddling with his cuffs, trying to find the right words.

‘I run a risk being here, I know that. God, my parents tell me it enough. I know it’s reckless of me, really.’

‘But you deserve the same opportunities as anyone else,’ Sirius protested.

‘Maybe I do. Doesn’t stop it always being a risk. I just...I like to pretend that it isn’t. That everything is ordinary.’

‘Things are never ordinary.’

Remus smiled, then turned his face serious again.

‘You can’t do it again.’

‘I know. I won’t.’

‘It would be kinda impressively stupid if you did.’

‘I’m not like them?’

Remus heard the sincere question in his voice, the fact that Sirius Black was genuinely asking because he needed to be told that he was not his parents. He wasn’t entirely certain what to do, how to prove that he didn’t think that Sirius was, so he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Sirius.

‘Not at all.’

He felt Sirius hug him back and it was weird, because Sirius was generally physically affectionate and would happily sprawl across or wrap an arm around Remus without a thought, but they’d never hugged like this, like they were somehow holding each other up.

‘I’m sorry.’

Sirius’ apology was more in his ear than he felt Sirius had intended.

‘I know.’

‘Do you want to go and meet James after his match and surprise him that we’ve turned up together?’

‘A fantastic plan.’

 

\---

 

Once Remus and Sirius were talking again, Peter could go back to worrying about the fact that his degree was over halfway done. He spent weeks thinking about how quickly the time was passing and how the others didn’t seem to be fussed by it. Sure, he knew that neither James or Sirius were as close to being done, but even Remus seemed to shrug off Peter’s comments that before long it would be their final year. He wanted direction and none of his friends were willing to give him any.

James was too focused on the big football match that would decide if they won the league or not. He had started talking team tactics with his friends, none of whom were particularly interested, though Peter liked football enough to listen and say approving things when required. He had never been able to talk endlessly about it unlike a lot of the boys he’d known at school. Sirius just kept pointing out that he had thrown away sports when he’d blasted through multiple private schools and emerged victorious at the other side. This usually resulted in James making some innuendo about what Sirius had actually done involving sports. Remus would say nothing and Peter wasn’t surprised, as he assumed that being a werewolf was a fair excuse to get out of PE.

His friends felt so caught up in their own dramas and subjects that Peter sometimes hated them for it. The feeling always passed quickly, yet he couldn’t help but wish they would focus more on something as a group. They were all off doing their respective subjects during the day, having lectures and tutorials and doing work, and often during the evenings too thanks to the workload. Peter found it so difficult to balance getting his work done and seeing his friends and still having time for other things like watching TV and seeing girls that he would often have to sacrifice one in order to keep the others up. He didn’t tell the other three, though, as they already thought he was the one who got overwhelmed by work and couldn’t cope. Having decided that by the age of twenty he probably should have grown up a bit, he also didn’t tell his mum, worried that if he did he might never be able to stop asking her for help.

Peter stared at his calendar sometimes, the one that he required in order to be able to picture when any of his deadlines were, and thought about how few weeks were left until the end of term and thus the end of their second year. He knew that James had already promised that they all had to come and visit him over the summer, insisting that his parents wouldn’t mind and in fact would be excited to meet them, but still the summer seemed like a vast time. Sure, he might be lucky like last year and be able to hang around with old friends from school and maybe meet a girl, but also they might have all moved on in a year and he’d be stuck listening to his mum watch soaps every evening and the endless silence of the daytime when she was at work. He hoped he wouldn’t have a boring summer. Still, he reminded himself, it wasn’t summer yet, and along with work there would be fun too, especially if James’s team won their upcoming match.

 

\---

 

The morning was bright and still, the kind that Remus usually saw out of the window but didn’t spend time in. However, this Saturday morning was different. James had made them promise to be up and raring to go regardless of any extenuating circumstances, which was why Sirius had knocked on Remus’ door at two a.m. complaining that he couldn’t sleep but James was never going to accept that excuse. It still wasn’t long enough since The Incident for Sirius to not sound tentative and Remus to not feel slightly odd when he told Sirius to come in, that he couldn’t sleep either. Sirius was unexpectedly wearing a vest with his pyjama bottoms, which Remus couldn’t help but wonder if Sirius thought that bit of propriety might sway the likelihood of Remus letting him come in. They talked meaningless stuff in the darkness. When Remus woke up to his blaring alarm, Sirius was somehow asleep in a ball at the bottom of his bed.

‘Fuck’s sake, James,’ croaked Sirius as he started to sit up. ‘The things we do for you and football. Ow, my back.’

‘Why did you sleep like that then?’

‘I’ve no idea. It seemed comfortable at the time.’

‘More comfortable than sleeping in your own bed?’

‘Is my presence really that offensive?’

Remus merely pulled a face. He didn’t really want to complain that much about waking up to Sirius trying to stretch like a cat in a tight-fitting vest. Sirius left to get dressed and reappeared twenty minutes later freshly showered and dressed like he was going to a bar rather than a football match.

‘Are you sure Doc Martens and a Clash t-shirt are what you’re meant to be wearing to support James?’

‘I’m sorry, my ‘WE LOVE YOU POTTER’ t-shirt is in the wash.’

At that moment, Peter appeared in the open doorway.

‘Were we meant to have t-shirts?’

‘No, Pete, Remus just wanted to insult my dress sense because he’s mean.’

If James had been there, Remus might have refrained from sticking his tongue out at Sirius, because James would have rolled his eyes in a way that Remus felt was pointed, but as James wasn’t, Remus had no hesitation with doing so. Sirius stuck two fingers up at him in response.

‘Can we get the flirting done so we can get to the match on time?’ asked Peter and both Remus and Sirius looked at him in surprise.

‘Wow,’ said Sirius. ‘When James isn’t here you do a good job of sounding like him.’

Remus had been going to deny that they were flirting, but Sirius clearly wasn’t bothered so he kept his mouth shut. They stopped off on their way to the sports ground that James was playing at and bought hot drinks and breakfast rolls. Remus watched as both the male and female barista tried to flirt with Sirius and he instead gestured at Remus.

‘Whatever he wants as well, please. Oh, and stick an extra shot in my coffee.’

‘Sirius, I don’t need-’

‘Not saying you do. Look, I’ll be fair. Peter, you want anything more?’

Peter had already paid for his tea and food, so he shrugged.

‘Grab some muffins for later?’ he suggested.

‘Excellent choice. We’ll take one lemon and poppyseed, one blueberry, one chocolate, and should we get James one? Nah, they must have football snacks. C’mon Remus, we don’t have all morning.’

Remus gave in and told a barista his order. They made it to the pitch with decent time to spare and Sirius waved frantically at James until James waved back, which admittedly did not take long. There was already a sizable crowd gathered around, unusual for the regular games but not for one with high stakes. Remus knew that if they won this they’d won the league and though he wasn’t entirely certain what the league involved, it mattered to James a lot. A bunch of the nasty lot Severus Snape hung around with were congregated on the other side of the pitch so Remus assumed at least one of them was playing in the match. Hopefully Severus wouldn’t turn up. Plenty of people from their college were nearby despite the early start. Remus saw some fellow History students and waved.

‘Oh dear, there’s Mary,’ said Sirius. ‘Better hope Lily’s not here too or James will go crazy.’

‘Too late,’ replied Peter, pointing slightly further away.

Remus went over to talk to his course mates and they all pretended to be slightly more interested in football than they actually were. They quickly digressed into discussing the reading for the upcoming week, with the usual competitions of who had the worst or longest books to get through. He liked these conversations, ones in which he could freely talk about something major in his life without feeling like he was hiding something. The other popular topic of conversations was college gossip, which made him fear he’d be the scandal one day, and childhood anecdotes, of which he was unsurprisingly lacking in any that treaded the fine line of amusing and not too revealing.

‘Remus, c’mon, James is gonna be playing soon and we need to stand in a good spot so he can’t help but notice us.’ 

Sirius had come to collect him, with Peter trailing behind. Remus followed and they stood near the halfway line, not far from where James and his teammates were huddled in last-minute discussion. Soon the match was under way and Remus’ thoughts were taken up watching James and hoping things would go well for him. Things were tightly fought and by half time it was one all. They ate their muffins that Sirius doled out like somebody’s mother and discussed chances with people who passed them on their way to dash off and find food.

The second half started off more brutally. A sliding tackle brought down one of James’ team and then James himself was shoved away from the ball and onto the ground, resulting in a free kick. James took it and the score went to two-one. Peter muttered to himself about how they mustn’t throw it away. Even Sirius had stopped making comments and was just cheering every time James did anything. All of a sudden, the other team had the ball and nobody was stopping them. The keeper came out to meet the ball, but it was swerved around him and into the goal. Two all. It took Remus a while to notice that Sirius’ arm was on his shoulder, clenched, as if the tension was too much to keep him standing otherwise. James’ expression was fierce and determined.

There were only minutes to go. Remus kept checking his watch compulsively, hoping for time to slow a little. A draw wouldn’t be enough. They needed to win in order to win overall. He knew this because James had said it almost enough to become a mantra. Then, James passed to a teammate, one of the Prewett twins it looked like, and ran forward, into unattended space. The ball went back to James, who dribbled it forward, faking his way past one, two defenders until he had a shot on goal. Sirius was gripping Remus’ shoulder so hard that Remus thought he might need a new one.

‘Goal!’ shrieked Peter, the ending cut off because Sirius was yelling ‘Potter!’ and making people nearby stare at them. The final whistle blew only moments later and everyone nearby erupted in cheering. Remus knew he was cheering too, but he couldn’t hear it. Peter was doing a small dance that Remus knew they wouldn’t mock later. On the pitch, James had a dazed grin as he and his teammates congratulated each other by leaping around and shouting.

Once the teams had shaken hands and people had stopped slapping James on the back for long enough for him to move, he came over to them, beaming, and Sirius finally let go of Remus’ shoulder to leap at him. Remus thought later that the image of the leather jacket clad Sirius throwing his arms around the muddy figure of James in a football kit should’ve been documented to prove that friendship doesn’t have to revolve around similarities. Then James, breathless, yelled barely coherently about the most tense moments whilst Peter squeaked in agreement. This was still going on when a voice came from behind.

‘Not bad, James.’

They all turned, not because it was surprising that someone was congratulating him, but because they recognised the voice. Sure enough, it was Lily Evans, who smiled at him before turning back towards her friends. James blinked, stunned.

‘My boy’s growing up,’ said Sirius and James punched him on the arm. ‘Ow! We’re not all muscled sports stars, you know.’

More people came past and offered congratulations. Eventually James went over to the old changing rooms that Remus thought looked more like a weird summer house in a posh person’s garden, and they settled for discussing the match with anyone around and accepting comments to James on his behalf.

‘You all seem very happy.’

Remus jumped. He knew who it was.

‘Fuck off, Severus,’ said Sirius. ‘Jealousy’s not a good look.’

‘I’m not jealous of Potter’s ability to kick balls around a field. If that’s all he’s good at, maybe he shouldn’t be here.’

‘On a football pitch?’ asked Peter.

‘At the university. He’s only here to kick a ball and lust uselessly over Lily. He might as well leave now.’

Sirius had moved to stand in front of Remus, which meant that Remus could almost see over Sirius’ head and hence he doubted the effectiveness of this protection. He braced himself for whatever Severus would say about him.

‘Stop spreading your bile, wanker,’ said Sirius. ‘Just because Lily won’t give you a look in either. She’s at least got better taste than that.’

‘Shut up.’

‘No. You go after my friends-’

‘What’s this about going after friends?’

James had arrived, changed into tracksuit bottoms and a Star Trek t-shirt.

‘Severus was defaming your good name, so I was just reminding him that whatever he thinks you are, he’s far worse.’

‘Oh great. What are we going for? His terrible personality, his repulsive friends, the fact he never washes his hair?’

Remus knew they were doing this partly for him, but he still felt conflicted about it.

‘We can’t all wash our hair three times a day like Black. Prettying himself for life as a pathetic gay cunt whose family hate him.’

Without thinking, Remus grabbed hold of Sirius’ jacket, just in case.

‘You jealous of me too?’ asked Sirius, spite seeping through his words. ‘Wish you had my sense of style? Because I’ve never seen you wear anything that isn’t an embarrassment and I’m sure your beloved Lily thinks so too.’

‘She doesn’t fucking know anything.’

Remus was shocked. Judging from the silence from his friends, so were they.

‘Things gone sour?’ asked James with a hint of glee. It was then that Remus saw a flash of red hair behind Severus and realised what was going to happen. He said nothing. He wanted Severus to get a taste of his own medicine.

‘She’s a whiny bitch who thinks she’s something special because she’s a girl who does science and plays video games. Too special for any decent man.’

‘Fuck off, she just rejected you because you’re a disgusting offensive wanker.’

‘No, Potter, she just needs a good fucking to teach her she’s no better than the rest of them.’

‘The rest of who?’ shouted a voice from behind. A voice they’d heard not long before. Lily’s voice.

 

\---

 

When Lily punched Severus in the face, it caught her by surprise. Not that she hadn’t known the potential was there, but because she’d always imagined it would be cooler and more satisfying. As it was, he fell down onto the mud and looked up at her, a strangely pathetic look of anger in his eyes. She looked up and saw James and his friends gaping at her.

‘You lot shouldn’t’ve been fighting with him. He’s nothing. He’ll say anything to try and make himself feel better.’

She knew she shouldn’t really have lectured them seeing as she had just punched him, but they were the ones who had riled him up, trading insults that she had only half heard until she’d clocked that she was being talked about. Then she had really paid attention. It had only been a few days ago that she had told Severus to leave her alone and stop obsessively texting her. She’d heard enough rumours about the views and actions of his so-called friend group to be worried, and his creepy behaviour had really sealed the deal. He had protested, but she had left to go to to hall and his reactions had since then only consisted of text pleas and, when they got no response, the occasional insult. She saved them all and sent them to her friends, who all agreed she was well shot of him and his nice guy act.

Maybe she wouldn’t have done anything if all he had done was insult her a little bit whilst trying to act big in front of James and the others. However, Severus had not only insulted her, but all womankind, and then specifically several of her friends, proving that he was homophobic and transphobic as well as being a misogynistic creep, all of which she guessed she had known before and failed to stop. She had always kept quiet and only refused to engage when he was offensive, because she knew that one word would make him turn on her, claim that she was only there because he’d saved her from a life working in a supermarket, an insult used because it was exactly what her mum did.

When it had become clear that if she didn’t step up and punch him, Sirius Black would have, she could wait no longer. She could tell that Remus was holding Sirius back by his leather jacket, which gave her the advantage. The hit had landed on Severus’ cheek. He had fallen, she had lectured James, and then it was all over, James leading his friends away and Lily returning to her own friends, who turned and saw Severus on the ground. She filled them in on the story over a lunchtime pint in a nearby pub, which she did not have to buy because they were so impressed with her. It would be her legend for a while.

 

\---

 

‘I’ll give it to you, James, at least you picked someone impressive to ineffectually try and win over,’ Sirius said with an approving nod. It was four hours since Lily had punched Severus Snape, not that Sirius was keeping count. James grinned, barely chastened by Lily telling them off, but instead caught in the glow of winning the match, the league, and, as it seemed to be, the slightest chance that Lily might actually tolerate him.

‘Oi, James, team photo,’ shouted Gideon from a table away. They were in the pub, the team having gone home to shower and dress in clothes more suitable for celebration and reconvened for a roast and drinks and calls for a team photo every half an hour. The photos would undoubtedly be progressively worse, but none of the friends and partners of the team wanted to point this out. Sirius, Remus, and Peter had a table on the edge of the group which James would return to and then be called away from constantly. This meant that they had between them eaten half of his food and occasionally poured bits of their own drinks into James’ unattended pint. Not enough that it would be visibly noticeable though. Sometimes people came over to talk to them, but Sirius was refusing to move, an unspoken fact that had something to do with Remus sitting beside him. He could not yet be complacent again about Remus sitting next to him, being in his company, not hating him forever.

‘Should I get pudding?’ asked Peter. ‘Nobody else is.’

‘Maybe they’re all waiting for someone to get dessert first. Lead the way,’ Sirius replied, looking at the small piece of card that was a dessert menu. It was sticky from spilt drinks.

‘Right. I will then. Do you guys want me to order you anything?’

Sirius was about to say no when Remus spoke.

‘Share a sundae with me?’

‘Which one?’ said Sirius instantly.

‘Don’t know. Chocolate decadence sounds fun.’

‘Decadence always sounds fun.’

Remus pushed a fiver into Peter’s hand.

‘Chocolate decadence. Two spoons. Don’t let Sirius give you any money for it.’

Peter nodded and set off to the bar. Sirius didn’t argue because he could always find ways to give Remus stuff without making a fuss about it. By the time Peter returned, James was back too, grumbling that he hadn’t noticed eating half his dinner. Sirius caught Remus’ eye and they tried not to laugh. He knew it was just messing around and allowing Remus to have ice cream even though he was too full to eat a proper dessert, but it felt like forgiveness, in actions rather than in words, because though the words had come weeks beforehand, the actions were what Sirius needed to reinforce the words.

After the ice cream, they got more drinks and discussed with the rest of the team and their friends what the plan was going to be. Sirius hoped for music, as he usually did. He really wanted karaoke - he was great at surprising people with the variety of songs that he was willing to sing in front of a crowd and prove that he knew the lyrics to - but very much doubted that the football team shared his view. They didn’t appreciate that he needed to top the last time he’d managed to make karaoke the plan and he had wowed everyone with his rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Boxer’ complete with air drums (by ‘everyone’, mostly James who had laughed that Sirius liked the song and Remus who had said he was surprised that Sirius would sing such a slow song). James, he knew, was trying to guess whether he’d be able to find Lily anywhere and Sirius hoped for James’ sake that the answer was no.

Eventually they settled on a club that had that dubious reputation of also being a sports bar. In Sirius’ experience, no club in the country that claimed to also be a sports bar was any good, but instead somewhere that wished to appear slightly more American than a simple run-down club with a couple of TVs nobody ever looked at. However, it was James’ celebration so he said nothing and settled for making a couple of comments to Remus as they walked through the warm night about the problems of straight people. Remus pointed out that the whole team wasn’t straight and it was more likely a sports people problem. Ahead, James talked to Fabian and David whilst Peter bounced along next to him, listening to their tipsy football chat.

‘You know I thought when I left private schools I’d be able to escape unhealthy obsessions with sports. But no, I find a bloody best friend who thinks running is for something other than escaping places and trying to not miss buses.’

‘Such a man of the people, you take buses,’ replied Remus.

‘My mother hates them so I take buses everywhere in London and only use the tube when I don’t have a spare hour and a half for the traffic. She hates the tube too but marginally less because it sounds less distastefully common.’ 

Sirius pulled a face and then produced a hip flask from his pocket. Remus raised his eyebrows, but after a few pints of cider he mostly looked excited rather than judging.

‘What’s in there?’

‘Whisky. Here, have some, I knew we’d need something to make the sports seem more fun.’

Remus took a swig and passed the hip flask back. 

‘Does your mum really hate public transport? Or is this an ineffectual rebellion thing?’

Sirius laughed, knowing that Remus must have drunk a fair amount if he was willing to ask Sirius about his family.

‘She does. She hates a lot of things. As for the rebellion, I have to take what I can get. She gave up saying anything my outfits years ago and stopped trying to throw things at me after the second tattoo. The second visible tattoo, I mean. I’m saving being gay for a really big occasion. Maybe her birthday.’

Remus stared and Sirius wondered if he’d gone to far with the honesty.

‘She doesn’t know?’

‘Nope.’

‘Weren’t you kicked out of a school for kissing boys whilst bunking off lessons?’

‘Politely told that they wouldn’t accept my fee payments any more, but yes. Think she assumed I was just making a statement. I make a lot of statements.’

‘You don’t say.’

Remus didn’t say anything else so Sirius felt like he ought to elaborate.

‘When I was younger I was still working things out. Partly by making out with half the rugby team, yes, but not just that. And it didn’t feel like rebelling, more like giving the enemy ammunition based on who I was. And...it’s tiring enough being attacked for every other aspect of your existence so I just...don’t say anything.’

Remus looked sad so Sirius passed him the hip flask.

‘Sounds safer that you don’t,’ said Remus after taking a swig, quiet and solemn. Sirius hadn’t wanted the night to go like this.

‘Probably. But anyway, Moony-’ Remus groaned. ‘we need to celebrate James until his head is too big to fit back through the door and then we’ll have to deflate it by telling him that Lily probably still won’t do anything in his company.’

True to his word, Sirius spent the next two hours dancing round the place with James, encouraging James and the rest of the team to do shots, and making football players drink water if their own friends weren’t around. He spent a lot of the latter duty with Remus standing behind him, seemingly drunk enough to have no qualms about following Sirius around and not pretending it was for a specific reason. Sirius wanted it to be for a specific reason, but he also didn’t want to change things and fuck them up. Eventually, once Sirius had hug-screamed along with James to a strange remix of ‘We Are The Champions’ that Sirius had convinced the DJ to play, he also convinced James and Peter (who was leaning against a pillar shouting ‘they won’ at nobody) that it was time to go home. By this point he was at least halfway to sober, but played the ‘I’m fairly drunk’ card to stick an arm around Remus’ waist when asking him to lead Peter whilst he lead James. Remus was drunker than Sirius and agreed with dramatic gestures that Sirius assumed meant ‘yes, I am the serious one, I can help’.

Other than James telling everyone in line at the kebab van that he’d scored the winning goal that day, they made it back home uneventfully. Sirius made James take off his shoes, eat his chips, and put on his pyjamas, then gave him a large glass of water and a pat on the head.

‘You’d better look after me next time I want to get blackout drunk,’ he said quietly as he left James’ room, sufficiently sure that James would collapse into unconsciousness very soon. He wanted to find an excuse to knock on Remus’ door, maybe spend the night sitting on his floor talking shit or sleeping haphazardly in his chair, but he’d done that the night before and something in his brain told him to not test Remus’ patience. Instead he went into his own room, grabbed his own glass of water, and sat staring out the window, thinking about what he’d said to Remus earlier that evening and how much he wished that term could last forever without the summer coming at all. The problem was, the summer had to come. So did the sun, rising whilst Sirius was still staring out the window, reminding him that he couldn’t make the night or the term last any longer than it was going to.


	5. Third Year, Part One

When James got a call from Sirius saying that he was at the train station and would be at James’ house in a few hours, he didn’t hesitate. He told his parents as level-headedly as he could and let his mum give him instructions on making sure the guest room was ready. To his parents’ credit, they said little other than ‘of course he can stay’ and ‘what do you know?’. Unfortunately the answer to the latter had been ‘very little’. Two weeks into the long summer vacation and Sirius definitely seemed on edge, but James hadn’t expected much else. Sirius’ brother Regulus had finished his A Levels and was apparently on track to breeze straight into Christ Church. A couple of cousins were getting married to respectable and important people. James was never quite certain what Sirius’ dad actually did, but Sirius had said that he was busy and stressed. That was about all he knew to tell his parents.

He drove to the station in the secondhand Citroen Saxo that faithfully lived in the garage and came out when he was home for the summer. His parents had said he wasn’t allowed anything that wasn’t a cheap secondhand car and James had been secretly glad, though their reasoning had been that then it wouldn’t matter when he drove into things, rather than because the privileged rich boy poser car thing was terrible. Sirius appeared with two huge suitcases, a holdall, and two backpacks. He grinned at James, a fake kind of smile that James returned in the hope it might make it more real. The boot and backseat of the car loaded up with Sirius’ stuff, they drove back to James’ only making comments about how the train had been and whether James’ car was happy to see him.

James watched as his mum immediately ushered Sirius into a hug and then gestured upstairs.

‘You know where your room is.’

Sirius nodded.

‘Thanks, Mrs Potter.’

‘Now, now.’

‘Thanks, Julia.’

James helped to lug Sirius’ bags up the stairs and down the landing to the guest bedroom door.

‘You want to settle in? Hang up your precious clothes?’

He was trying to sound nonchalant, as if he wasn’t trying to say ‘When you want to talk, do, but I’m not pressuring you, and also you’re here all summer, you know that right?’ 

‘You can stay, you’ve seen my clothes before,’ replied Sirius. James leapt onto the double bed in the middle of the room and settled into a pose he hoped suggested this was not a big deal at all. It only took ten minutes for their idle chat about unpacking to turn into Sirius starting to explain what had happened.

‘I get back from Oxford and I’m told that I’m not allowed to go out all the time like I usually do. That my allowance will be cut off if I spend more than two hours a day out of the house.’

‘You never-’ started James.

‘I didn’t say anything because you’d have been on the first train to London to drag me away. As it was, might’ve been better, but anyway. I spent a few days doing as they said, staying in my room and enduring through meals under the watchful eye of my mother like we’re in some slow burn horror film. Then she starts saying that I can’t stay in my room, I have to come down and see the guests, whoever the guests are, which is usually some woman who looks exactly like my mother and even scowls the same. Or some terrible distant relatives come to brag. I tried to comply for a day or two, and then I pointed out that I had work to do over the summer and couldn’t spend hours every day drinking tea with near strangers.’

Sirius pulled scarves out of a bag. James found it easier to question because Sirius wasn’t actually looking at him.

‘Why was she bothering doing all that?’

‘I had my guesses, which were that she wanted to stop me doing anything I wanted to and maybe make me fail my degree at the same time. I’d made a comment about texting you to make sure she knew she couldn’t take my phone, she couldn’t risk you wanting to know why I’d gone silent and ruining her model parent act. Well, she said she didn’t care about my work and that I needed to do penance to the family by being a good a son. The next day she said I wasn’t allowed out the house at all, not until I’d stopped disrespecting the family and putting their reputation at risk. Regulus grinning all the while across the dining table.’

‘She locked you in the house?’

‘Essentially. Took my key, promised that I would get no more money if I stepped a foot over the threshold. Over dinner my father gave a long speech about integrity because he’s far more passive aggressive than her. And still, you’ll be surprised to hear, I did what they said. At any spare moment I skulked around the house looking for ways to get money and get out of there, but there was no convenient credit card or anything. I wanted to rage at her, of course, but that’s what she does too, and if I lost it, she’d use that as proof to pull me from Oxford and force me into whatever she wanted. Claim I was violent and dangerous or something. So I tried to hold it all in and look for a way out. And then came yesterday.’

‘Yesterday?’

‘We had family over for dinner, a load of cousins and aunts and uncles. She kept up a stream of how great Regulus is and how terrible I am to whoever would listen, loud enough I could hear. And then after everyone had left, she and my father sat me down and told me that they were going to arrange a marriage to the daughter of one of my father’s associates to give me a fresh start. I asked what about Oxford and she said that it might be better if I quietly slipped away and it was put out that I felt that a career was a better direction for me. A job with my cousin’s husband, in fact.’

James gasped. He didn’t mean to and it sounded dramatic, which made Sirius smile. It wasn’t like James was particularly surprised, more that Sirius’ parents had so suddenly changed their tactic to complete control.

‘I nodded, I left the room, and I spent the night packing. My parents were in the dining room when I went down this morning. My mother yells what the fuck do I think I’m doing and I reply that I’m leaving. For good. And then I said that I’m staying at Oxford and not marrying someone because they tell me to and by the way I’m gay. That’s when she threw the glass she was holding. I ducked, but I had to get out the door pretty quick after that. Luckily she’s too obsessed with reputation to shout in the street so I actually missed out on all the horrible slurs she was probably calling me.’

James blinked. He knew that Sirius’ family were awful, he knew that they hated everything that Sirius did, and he knew that Sirius had never actually told them about his sexuality. What he hadn’t known was that those things would all come together with a flying glass to land Sirius unpacking shirts in his family’s spare room.

‘Is this everything you own?’ James asked, because it didn’t seem a huge amount, not massively more than what Sirius brought to Oxford each term.

‘Mostly. I left behind anything I didn’t need. Kept anything with resale value though. Might be needing that. And my books and CDs took a bit of a hit because they’re not great to travel with. Thank god for iTunes, eh?’

James really wasn’t sure what to say when his best friend had packed his entire life into a few suitcases and bags and turned up at his house, other than the one always reassuring thing he knew.

‘I think dinner should be ready soon, my mum said she’d make a casserole.’

‘Potter home cooking, nice. And I believe my dog and I need to reacquaint ourselves.’

As promised, James’ mum made dinner and James’ parents didn’t press Sirius for information. They talked about recent political events and then James and Sirius told choice anecdotes from Oxford. After they’d eaten ice cream that James thought his mum might have bought specially, Sirius pointed out that he hadn’t slept the night before and perhaps needed to catch up. 

James went up claiming that he wanted to make sure that Sirius didn’t need anything, but actually so he could ask what he could tell his parents. Sirius gave him permission to tell them as much as he wanted and then looked awkward, like he’d wanted to either be hugely grateful or make a joke and couldn’t pick which. Trying to be light and like he’d not come up only to ask that, he then asked if Sirius needed a towel, to which Sirius pointed out that the sum of his possessions did actually include a towel (in actual fact, Sirius’ bed linen, duvet, and pillows from Oxford were in James’ house already because Sirius had been unable to get them home on the bus and the Potters’ car had space for them). He told his parents basically the whole story because he wanted to ensure they would let Sirius stay all summer, despite knowing that they probably would regardless. In the morning, James went for a run and returned to find Sirius drinking coffee with his mum in the kitchen, which he supposed was a strange sight he’d have to get used to. 

There wasn’t much to get used to: these were all people that James was used to living with. Sirius smoked on their patio and returned most of the time with compliments about the large garden to mask the fact that he spent his time out there brooding. He spent a lot of time sitting around in a vest and a pair of cutoff denim shorts he claimed was basically all his summer wardrobe, reading classics books or things he picked off the Potters’ bookshelves. Sometimes Artemis would sleep alongside him, though James didn’t know if she recognised her original owner or liked the fact that Sirius was always so excited to see her. In the evenings James and Sirius watched TV box sets and films, taking turns to choose and force their taste upon the other. They played tennis and pool and sometimes went to the local swimming pool, which James eventually gave up on because Sirius mostly posed by the water’s edge and lost every race they had.

Only a few weeks had passed when it was time for Remus and Peter to visit. James was glad because he reckoned if he could shove Remus into Sirius’ orbit for a while, he might forget to brood in place of having intimate moments that somehow they both still claimed were just friendship. Also, he knew he could convince Peter to have a kickaround with him, which Sirius always refused, claiming he preferred the more lingeringly homoerotic sports.

 

\---

 

His train was twenty minutes late and Remus was half convinced that nobody would be there to meet him, that perhaps it was all an elaborate ruse and James didn’t live near this random station at all. Just desert the werewolf in some random southern English countryside. Instead, there was Sirius and James and Peter with a large holdall and a grimace that suggested his mum had told him to pack far too much in there.

‘Remus!’ Sirius strode forward and hugged him.

‘You’re wearing shorts?’ was the first thing out of Remus’ mouth. He hadn’t expected either the comment or the shorts.

‘It’s apparently all his summer wardrobe,’ interjected James. ‘One pair of shorts that he still wears with boots.’

‘Guys, I’m up here, there’s no need to be discussing my legs like this.’

‘Sirius, you’re an idiot,’ said Remus, unable to express any other way how glad he was to be there.

On their journey in James’ beaten-up car, Remus tried to study whether Sirius was any different for having run away from home, but it was tough because Sirius and James were singing along to everything that came on James’ iPod as they drove. Most of the journey was a rousing rendition of ‘American Pie’ to which Sirius also did air guitar and James tapped on the steering wheel. Remus smiled to himself and hoped the week wouldn’t go too quickly. When they got to James’ house, which was definitely bigger than Remus had expected, James led them through to the living room to say hello to his mum (who did freelance work and somehow didn’t mind her peace disturbed by a doubled amount of twenty-year-old boys). She greeted Remus and Peter as if she hadn’t only met them a few times when moving James in or out of college.

‘Right, sleeping arrangements,’ said James, rubbing his hands as if this was some kind of big plan. ‘There’s my room and the spare room aka Sirius’ room, so I’m thinking Remus shares with Sirius and Peter can have the rickety camp bed on my floor, how does that sound?’

Remus jerked his head to look at Sirius then tried to instantly look away, but he couldn’t miss the smile. The ‘James is a good guy’ grin. The look which meant that Remus didn’t need to have trepidation about whether Sirius would hate that arrangement, even if Sirius hadn’t previously slept curled up on the end of Remus’ bed.

‘Fine by me,’ said Remus, hoping he sounded casual. Peter nodded so they headed upstairs to drop off their bags. They all spent the afternoon in James’ room telling stories and complaining about home, with Sirius notably only telling anecdotes from staying at James’ house. Peter was having terrible luck in the museum he was volunteering at and had already broken something. James gave a dramatic retelling of going swimming with Sirius and an old lady complimenting Sirius on his tattoos. Remus had no exciting stories, as he never did, but he tried to oblige by making his parents’ worries sound funny rather than overbearing.

After dinner they all sat outside on wooden chairs and drank beers. Remus noticed that Sirius was drinking very slowly and when Sirius walked over to the other side of the patio to smoke out of their way, he followed.

‘You’re really not keeping pace with the rest of us,’ said Remus with a joking raised eyebrow, knowing that Sirius was best with probing comments if they sounded like jokes. Sirius lit his cigarette before responding.

‘James is keeping an eye on me, bless him, so I’m going easy on the alcohol most of the time. Not gonna make him worry when it’s probably better anyway. Don’t want to be a moping twat every night.’

‘Have you been a moping twat? I thought you were more of a staring into the middle distance guy.’

Sirius laughed.

‘I have been seeing a lot of the middle distance, yes.’

There was an awkward pause in which Remus strengthened his resolve to keep things on the topic at hand.

‘At least you’re shot of them.’

‘You are, Moony, quite right.’ Remus only faintly scowled at the nickname. ‘James is keeping clear of anything that isn’t practical or pressing so he hasn’t made such a keen observation. They are out of my hair.’

‘Your hair is way above them.’

‘That’s almost a compliment.’

‘I give them sometimes.’

‘I’ll hope for a better one someday, then.’

‘I think there’s a chance.’ 

Remus winked. Sirius blew out smoke with an incredulous look.

‘Oi, smoker’s corner, get back here, we’re going to play nighttime boules,’ called out James.

‘Trust him to make it about sport,’ said Sirius, stubbing out the cigarette.

That night, Remus found himself in the fairly unusual position of sharing a bed with Sirius Black whilst sober. Sirius was topless and put up a fake fight for which side of the bed they should have. It wasn’t until they were supposedly going to sleep that Remus realised that Sirius had probably been putting off sleep, but it became apparent when he was awoken by a thrashing sound and then Sirius sitting bolt upright. Remus was not at all a stranger to nightmares, in fact dreams without a stalking wolf figure in some way were what he had more often than not, so he at least knew what he always felt like would be helpful.

‘Lie down and face away from me,’ he told Sirius, who did as told. Remus lay behind him and moved closer, putting his arm over Sirius’ side. ‘Okay?’

‘-is cosy,’ mumbled Sirius. Remus settled himself to sleep and wasn’t woken up again until James burst in at ten o’clock to see if they wanted a hot drink. Remus raised his head sleepily.

‘Did he make you do that?’ asked James with a smirk. ‘He’s very snuggly. Like his bloody dog who sometimes nibbles my toes.’

‘Defamation,’ said Sirius, who hadn’t looked up. ‘Of both of us.’

Remus ended up sleeping the same way for the rest of the week, with the time before they fell asleep the time in which he found out that Sirius had applied for the full student loan a while ago for the upcoming year, foreseeing that he might need to, and had already told their college that he had been cut off and effectively disowned by his parents so they were to ignore any communication from them. Through the darkness of the Potters’ spare room, he told Remus the stories of his decent relatives, his cousin who had married a working class Scotsman and his favourite uncle who was always a bit weird and eccentric, but ‘in a good way’. 

Remus listened and eventually told things himself, not from a sense that it would be good for Sirius but because he wanted to share, because he was so used to being closed off. He talked about how isolating school had been, keeping a secret and not feeling like he was the same as the others, how he had got into myths and legends from looking into what people said about werewolves and then dropping the werewolf part, how he’d had a girlfriend at school for two months and had felt so uncomfortable with it that he’d been hugely relieved when she’d told him that it was over. Not being able to see Sirius’ face or reactions was good. The rest of the each day, they didn’t acknowledge the conversations, kept normal if there was a value of normal they could ever adhere to, especially in present circumstances. James didn’t make comments about their sleeping arrangements, though Remus thought he might have said something to Sirius because there probably wasn’t a topic they wouldn’t breach.

On the final night, James declared they must have a celebration, though he kept terming it ‘garden party’ like they were meeting the queen. They had a barbeque, with James’ mum supplying rolls and salad in return for getting burgers and sausages for her and James’ dad, and James insisting he could suitably cook the meat. Sirius, who Remus had thought would be all over putting meat right by fire until it tasted good, lurked on one of the garden chairs smoking with an annoyed expression. It turned out to be Peter who took over, having had enough family barbeques to be more proficient than James. He wore an apron that clearly belonged to Mrs Potter and brandished tongs at James when he got too close and tried to interfere.

They drank Pimm’s out of a large jug kindly filled with fruit by James’ mum like it was an actual garden party before moving onto James’ selection of half-open spirits and whatever mixers had been in the pantry. It was an impressive selection, better than what they usually drank in Oxford on a student budget; James admitted that about half the bottles had been presents from relatives and family friends. Remus didn’t look forward to the inevitable hungover train journey he’d have to do the next day, but joined in enthusiastically regardless, mixing himself spiced rum and orange juice and mentally claiming it had a healthy bonus. Eating had seemed to cheer Sirius up at least enough that he made comments about Peter’s secret barbeque skills and mixed James drinks that he insisted would be delicious. Remus had a suspicion that Sirius was brooding because he and Peter were leaving the next day, but he felt bigheaded to believe so. Nevertheless, he wanted the evening to go well so he took the chance to momentarily talk to Sirius alone when James and Peter, for some strange reason, went inside to look for ice lollies that might match cocktails.

‘I’ll miss you,’ he said simply, not looking at Sirius, but at his glass. ‘For the rest of the summer.’

Sirius took a sip of his drink.

‘Me too.’

‘You can call whenever, you know. Even at night. I don’t do much, I can move my sleep schedule around.’

He looked up at Sirius, who was smiling.

‘Thanks. The same always goes for you, of course.’

‘For when I want to chat about being a werewolf?’ 

Remus couldn’t help himself, he needed to make it lighter again, exposed out here rather than in the dark. Sirius laughed, a sound Remus was deeply glad to hear, despite having heard it plenty over the week. Often a little hollow, though.

‘That, or whether you need another brown jumper. Though I’ll say no to that obviously.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind.’

James and Peter reappeared with a box of rocket lollies and Sirius channelled his energy into tasting the yellow, orange, and red striped lollies and trying to create a cocktail to match them. His eventual creation involved a melted lolly which had alcohol poured down it as it melted. He seemed perkier and James gave Remus a secret thumbs up at one point, making Remus think the ice lolly thing might have been a ruse. 

Unsurprisingly, James found a load of his old garden sports equipment so they started playing drinking sports, in which losing points meant drinking, and ‘sports’ being a loose term that included piggy in the middle and a weird plastic croquet set despite none of them, not even James or Sirius, knowing the rules. James remarked that meant they had wasted an Oxford education. They constructed a ‘net’ out of chairs and a picnic blanket and played volleyball, with Sirius pulling off his t-shirt for ‘accuracy’ and James and Peter following suit. Remus only got hit in the head once from staring at Sirius and he claimed that it was due to all the alcohol when James suggested otherwise.

The activities abandoned, they lay on the grass, drinking and talking. Remus was next to Sirius and edged his hand over until the side of it touched the side of Sirius’ for a while, until Sirius sat up to drink more.

‘Final year,’ said Peter solemnly.

‘Only for you and Remus,’ pointed out James. ‘Me and Sirius are only halfway done with our looooong degrees.’

‘Third year then. Still big. We should do something to celebrate.’

‘Like what?’ asked Sirius. ‘Pull a prank? Hold a party?’

‘Ensure our lasting legacy,’ said James. ‘We must think of something. Homework! Everyone must come up with suggestions for creating our legacy by the start of term.’

‘Can’t believe you’re giving us homework,’ Remus complained. ‘Like we’re at school.’

‘If we were at school, we’d be learning something.’

‘I learnt what rocket lollies taste like with alcohol,’ said Peter.

Remus started to zone out from the conversation, his drunk brain fuzzy and trying to grasp hold of something. Sirius was next to him, he thought, and he just wanted to stay like that forever. The alcohol stopped him from thinking ‘what the fuck, brain?’ and instead he turned his head to check Sirius was still there. He was, his head to one side so he was looking at Remus. Sirius grinned at Remus and then sat up to have more of his drink, because unlike James he was still committed to not spilling alcohol all over himself whilst lying down. The moment felt important, but Remus couldn’t keep hold of it, his brain refusing to focus.

Later, they stumbled around collecting up the cups and bottles and took them inside, exchanging them for huge glasses of water which they drank enthusiastically. Peter moaned that he was hungry so James and Remus worked together to make him toast, one of them always correcting the other when they did it wrong. They loitered in the kitchen, starting to sober up, until Peter started to fall asleep and Remus remembered he had a train to catch at lunchtime. Once in their room, Sirius pulled off his boots and jeans and climbed into bed, yawning loudly. Remus put on pyjama bottoms but knew he was too warm for a top and without his usual panic about the bite mark scar on his chest, didn’t bother putting one on. He climbed into bed and somehow knew that both he and Sirius would be asleep very soon, so if he wanted to say anything, it had to be then.

‘I’ve forgiven you, you know. Totally.’

‘I know,’ mumbled Sirius.

‘I wish we could sleep like this all the time.’

‘Me too.’

Remus didn’t respond. He just left the words playing in his head on a loop as he fell into a confused, drunken sleep, and when he woke up, they were entwined and sprawled across the bed. He didn’t move, but thought about how he might have realised something the night before. Something crucial.

 

\---

 

For the first time, Sirius Black did not arrive in Oxford after the summer on the bus, hauling his possessions down the street. Instead, he sat in the back of the Potters’ car with James, wondering how James had so much stuff. James’ parents argued with Radio 4 and James scowled because he’d promised Sirius that he wouldn’t Facebook stalk Lily to check what she’d done over the summer. They collected the keys to their new rooms and went with high hopes down stone corridors and past neat grass quads until they found them. First floor and arranged around a square landing with the stairs in the middle, it looked like the perfect set up for gathering together before going off with a mission. They were actually within the college grounds again and Sirius wasted no time in telling James he was close to his beloved deer.

Sirius’ room had a huge window with the desk in front and an unexpected full-length mirror that he wanted to brag about but knew he was the one of them who’d like that the most. James’ mum included him in her annual new room fussing, for some reason checking where all the plug sockets were before she’d let him unpack. He thanked her emphatically yet again for letting him stay all summer. She told him to let them know if there was any issue with money or the college or his parents. Sirius nodded and vowed to himself to do nothing of the sort. He would manage. He had every bit of student loan he’d been able to apply for last year and everything that had been left in his bank account and savings to get him through these next two years. Over the summer, he had convinced himself that he could do it. He would find a way.

It took longer to unpack than normal because he was unpacking everything he owned, not wanting to ask the Potters if he could leave anything in their house just in case they wanted to rescind their offer of Christmas. Eventually James came in, without knocking as usual, and looked around in appraisal.

‘Yeah, you’ve definitely got the better room this year.’

‘Fate loves me, clearly.’

‘Or whoever does the housing admin.’

‘Maybe that too. You unpacked?’

‘Mostly. Some guys from the team want to have a welcome back kickabout before the new starters sign up so I’m going out.’

‘Take Peter if you see him, all I’ve heard in the gaps between my music is him telling his mum that she can leave now. Repeatedly. For an hour.’

‘Every year.’ James turned to leave. ‘Oh, and Sirius?’

‘Yeah?’

‘Remus is back.’

Sirius waited two minutes until he heard James and Peter go down the stairs and then quietly left his room. Each of their rooms was on a different side of the square, with the bathroom at the bottom of the stairs. This meant that Sirius knew he was safe from anyone seeing him awkwardly loiter on the square landing for five further minutes, until he was fully resolved to be casual and light. No mention of their bed sharing or intense conversations of the summer. Just two regular friends who had lain very closely and been the reason that one of them had finally managed to sleep properly. Light and casual, he told himself.

‘Guess who,’ he said, knocking on Remus’ door.

‘A Jehovah’s Witness? The ghost of a medieval peasant come to tell me that my essay about them is wrong? The man of my dreams who probably isn’t one of the first two?’

Sirius laughed a little too hard as Remus opened his door.

‘Are you saying that the person of your dreams is going to be a man, then?’

So much for being light and casual, he thought.

‘I think it’s most likely,’ replied Remus slowly.

‘I’m glad that instead of the traditional “welcome back to Oxford” greeting, you’ve gone for the lesser chosen “revealing you’re probably gay” option. So many people don’t these days.’

‘Then I’m glad I could keep the trend going.’

Remus was shaking and looked slightly nauseous, so Sirius lightly guided Remus to the chair in his new room and looked around.

‘Take some deep breaths. Your room’s not bad. I like this completely useless small table. Great for all the coffee table books you display as a student. James has gone to play football. We’ve been back two minutes and he needed to kick a ball. I do not know how I lived with him. Sometimes he put sport on the TV. That’s worse than actually playing it, just watching it happen somewhere else. Thank god for summer reading lists. I’m sure the tutors will be shocked at how prepared I am.’ 

Sirius shook his head dramatically. Remus smiled. Sirius wished for a second he could ask Remus to keep looking at him that fondly for a lot longer, at least until he had forgotten a few more of the things his mother had ever said about him.

‘You can tell James what I just said. I know you’ll want to. You can’t exactly hide anything from him.’

‘I’ve hidden things from James!’ Remus’ face turned into disbelief and Sirius put on a mock thinking pose. ‘I never told him that I once watched the entirely wrong person for half a football match because I was so hungover. Or maybe I did tell him but not until much later and when we were drunk.’

‘See.’

‘I never told him that both Gideon and Fabian Prewett off his football team propositioned me!’

Remus actually gasped.

‘What?!’

‘Are you more shocked that they did it or that I didn’t tell him?’

‘The latter.’

‘I didn’t want the football stuff to suddenly be about me. It was very quick, I only really noticed it hadn’t been the same one of them twice because they were wearing different clothes. Not a big deal. Also I turned them both down and I thought James might try and convince me to change my mind. He always says if he was into guys it would be football players. I was not letting him live that vicariously through me.’

‘This is still shocking.’

‘Shall we go to lunch? We’ll probably meet James and Peter there. Not to tell them this story, mind.’

Remus nodded and stood up. It was only as they were going down the stairs that Remus suddenly returned to what Sirius had been saying.

‘He’d be into football players? Isn’t that a bit...self obsessed?’

‘A bit, Moony? A bit?’

 

\---

 

Dinner on the first night back was a raucous affair, with people catching up, bragging, and panicking about holiday work and exams. Remus was glad to mostly listen and file away details of other people’s summers, including, surprisingly, Lily Evans, who willingly stopped by to say hello. Even more surprising, Remus thought, was that James only said hello and that he hoped she’d had a good summer, rather than anything brash and annoying. James then admitted to Remus in a whisper that Sirius had spent half the summer telling him to stop trying so hard and then she might realise he was actually a decent guy, not some annoying dickhead. Afterwards he muttered to himself about people needing to give themselves advice not just other people. Remus didn’t know what James was talking about.

After dinner they went to the college bar, invited by James’ friend Edgar and accepted because James had seen Lily in the group of people gathering to go. One drink in, it became apparent the place was full of freshers; luckily other people suggested they leave before Sirius’ scowl at remembering his brother was now a fresher at a certain other college took over his face and the evening. Frank, who’d lived downstairs from them the year before, suggested a newly reopened pub that was close by and apparently looked interesting. Without any better suggestions, they decamped there, a pub which turned out to be a faintly music themed place called ‘The Leaky Cauldron’. Sirius’ eyes grew wide at the retro posters and he launched into a conversation with the other people in the group with any interest in music of the 70s and 80s. Remus went up to the bar with James and Peter.

‘Right, who’s buying him a drink?’ said James, jolting his head back the way they’d come.

‘I will,’ Remus offered, because he’d been about to buy Sirius one anyway, and he knew that James had spent the summer trying to pretend he wasn’t buying Sirius things.

‘Great. Now, more pressing issue: why is Lily talking to Sirius about, I think, Led Zeppelin?’

Remus turned and James was right. They were sitting next to each other and Sirius was gesturing a lot, as he did when talking about music.

‘James, stop lip reading. And maybe start remembering everything Sirius has ever told you about music.’

James pulled a face.

‘I like music. I like Britpop and indie and I can handle some modern electronic stuff and maybe a few 90s club classics…’

‘Well, maybe you’ll have to learn to listen to something pre-1990.’

Drinks in hand, they went back over to the group. Remus took Sirius a pint of cider and got a ‘Remus, you star’ in distracted thanks whilst Lily paused her list of her favourite Blondie tracks. Remus tried not to smile and went over to talk to Mary and Jamal about whether they’d done the medieval society essay to any kind of decent standard. After a while their conversation petered out and they were drawn to the larger one nearby.

‘He’s totally relaunched his blog for the new academic year,’ said Benjy, who Remus recognised as a languages student who did German and spent a lot of time campaigning against racism within the university. ‘“Reclaim Oxford” is the new name. Big call for students to get in touch if they want to write guest posts or get involved.’

‘I hate to think what that means,’ said Mary.

‘Probably protesting against measures for equality in the name of freedom,’ James said, using his political tone of voice that made him suddenly sound older. Beside James, Peter was sipping his pint with a nervous look; he always hated when conversations became about politics or activism. Remus had never quite worked out if it was because he didn’t know what to say or because he was worried when people felt strongly about things.

‘Surely no one will listen to him?’ 

The speaker, a girl called Alice, looked tentatively hopeful. Benjy shook his head.

‘You’ve seen the news. It’s not only him. People around the country are keen to send us back years of progress because they feel threatened. Threatened by shit that’s conjured up by their prejudices.’

‘And Oxford’ll be no different?’

Benjy and a couple of others laughed bitterly.

‘Probably worse. You’ve seen his blog. It’s all framed in academic language, claims that what he is saying is educated and correct. And, of course, backed up by centuries of power. No to minorities, no to anybody with disabilities, no to anybody who isn’t a straight white man with a rich family and right wing opinions.’

‘But why isn’t he putting his name on it?’ asked Jamal.

‘Then people could complain,’ said Remus. A couple of people looked surprised that he’d spoken, used to hearing James or Sirius rather than him. ‘With this fake anonymity, Riddle can make himself seem more powerful, more than just one egotistical tutor who could be discredited. And his job is safe.’

A few people nodded in agreement. The conversation moved towards other elements of student and national politics and Remus started to zone out, instead noticing that Sirius and Lily had finally stopped talking about music. Remus stood up and went over to Sirius.

‘James is outraged she likes the same music as you.’

‘I’m outraged that she likes Hunky Dory best. How is that the best Bowie album?’

‘Well, you do say it’s basically impossible to have a favourite, maybe she just says that rather than go onto a half hour rant about changing musical styles like you do.’

Sirius grinned.

‘You listen!’

‘Sometimes.’

 

\---

 

‘I hereby christen this floor “The Marauders’ Quarters”. See, it’s a square and everything, so we do have quarters.’

‘James, you’re a maths nerd sometimes.’

‘Sirius, fractions are hardly difficult maths.’

It was the first Saturday of term and they were sitting on the floor outside their rooms. James had claimed they were having a housewarming party, though Peter wasn’t sure that four people sitting on the floor drinking two bottles of wine out of mugs was a party of any kind. He was glad, though, that they were gathered together, just the four of them; it made it feel properly like the start of the academic year. He was trying not to think about the fact that it would be his last.

‘Why are we suddenly “marauders”?’ asked Remus. ‘Doesn’t that mean we’re going out plundering or something?’

‘Well.’ James paused and looked around. ‘We are marauding for good times.’

‘And those can be found sitting on a landing?’

‘Good times can be found anywhere, Remus. I hereby declare that this year, the final one of you and Peter-’

‘James they’re not dying,’ interjected Sirius.

‘-shall be the year that we seek out the best times and the most exciting places.’

‘And then make a website as our legacy,’ said Peter suddenly. The idea had leapt into his mind and, for once, he’d just said it aloud.

‘A website!’

‘Actually,’ said Peter, still thinking. ‘An app. A Marauders app, I guess. Finding the best and most secret fun in Oxford.’

‘You’re a genius,’ James exclaimed. Peter looked around. Sirius and Remus were nodding.

‘I still don’t see why we need to use the term “Marauders”,’ said Remus. ‘But it’s a good plan otherwise.’

Peter took a gulp of wine out of his mug. He wasn’t used to this level of enthusiasm for his ideas. He wasn’t used to having ideas. He hadn’t even had the idea to apply to Oxford, but had been pushed to it by teachers who thought he might have potential if he stopped mucking around with people who were bad influences. Their pushiness was not something he regretted, though he had spent many nights, too stressed out to sleep, wishing they’d pushed him to something a little easier. A university with less pressure. Somewhere where his friends - as fantastic as they were - weren’t a classicist who knew two dead languages and tried to downplay how many books he read, a historian who took out books from other library sections ‘just for fun’, and a mathematician who could somehow fit in doing problem sheets with ease amongst football training and matches and running round the city for pleasure. No matter how loud and cool James and Sirius were, Peter always felt very aware that they were both far cleverer than him, with the ability to appear as if they weren’t to outsiders.

His app idea was not a short-lived one, forgotten in the morning. They discussed it over dinner and James set up a new group message, separate from their usual one, solely for discussing its progress. James had been on an app-making course for gifted students when he was at school and combined this with a couple of books he found in a library about building apps. Sirius acted as designer and planner and showed a remarkable sense of what functionality they needed considering that Peter had hardly seen him use his phone for much more than playing music and taking photos of dogs and his outfits. Remus wrote everything that would go on the app, starting off with all the information and menus until they had actual content. He and Sirius seemed to spend hours discussing the wording.

Peter spent evenings sat with James, watching him work on the app’s code and eventually learning how to do bits himself to help out, or at least offer a second pair of eyes. They usually sat at James’ desk, with Remus and Sirius on the bed or floor planning details or creating lists of potential spots and secrets to feature. Despite their initial motivation, it quickly became apparent that it would take them a while: after a few weeks, they were doing well, but they all had a lot of work to get done and thus discovering exciting locations to put on their app had to take a backseat. Peter wasn’t sure if he wanted them to complete the app though. Finishing it would mean their legacy was completed. Peter didn’t want a legacy. He wanted to stay as he was, not having to decide what he would do the following year, and without the constant press of the outside world. 

The Leaky Cauldron had become their regular pub, and the regular pub of plenty of other people from their year in the college, which meant that a quick drink often turned into conversation with someone, and those conversations often turned from work and college life into politics and social issues. Tom Riddle’s blog was on everybody’s lips, though as of yet not much had happened. Peter didn’t know what to say, didn’t have opinions like everybody else seemed to, and often found himself sipping at a pint watching James talk angrily about issues and pretend not to notice Lily was amongst the people listening. Sirius and Remus joined in too, though Remus was guarded when things became personal and Sirius kept out of any conversation that might make somebody refer to his parents, upbringing, or current estrangement. Peter wanted to escape these conversations and go back to when they mostly got drunk, talked shit, and went out to have adventures. Not this wider world where James wasn’t quite such a fool in front of Lily, where politically angry was the flavour of the night, and where Peter might one day have to gather up his not knowing what he was doing and actually find something he wanted to do.

 

\---

 

It was on a night that Lily Evans was thankfully not in the pub that James admitted to the others that he had been purposefully trying to be less annoying and more casual. In fact, there was nobody else they knew in the pub at all, apart from the bartender Rosie who greeted them as they walked in. James liked having a pub where they got greeted as regulars, despite it only having been a month since they first came there. The Leaky Cauldron was a decent place in general, with mismatched secondhand chairs and retro bar skittles beside a dartboard. Sure, it was too modern to really need either of these, with a cocktail menu alongside a list of ales, but it had charm, and sold nuts and sweets measured out in whisky glasses.

Knowing that Sirius had cottoned on to their attempts to buy him drinks when they went out, James had resorted to more underhand methods: he bought drinks and discovered he didn’t like them, he found deals for buying multiple drinks, and had twice convinced Rosie to pretend Sirius had won some non existent competition that was actually a drink James had already paid for, a trick which obviously only worked in that pub. Tonight, he thought as they went over to a table, would be much simpler. Remus had won a departmental essay prize and, conveniently, Sirius had read over it for him and given suggestions for improvements, meaning that Remus had offered to buy drinks with his prize money in thanks. James had a vague suspicion that Remus had hoped for events to turn out exactly like that.

Remus and Peter went up to the bar with James’ order for a pint and as many bar snacks as his change would allow. James waited until they were out of earshot before speaking.

‘Did you see Lily earlier?’

Sirius leaned forward.

‘Ooh, are we having a private chat?’ James gestured rudely at him. ‘You mean earlier at dinner when she was sitting opposite you and joined into the communal conversation and at least once directly replied to what you’d said?’

‘That exactly. You noticed?’

‘I live only for your happiness. Well, that and I was sitting next to you.’ Sirius looked over at their friends at the bar. ‘Why is this secret?’

‘It’s not,’ said James a little too quickly. ‘It’s just...it sounds stupid.’

‘You sound stupid a lot of the time you talk about her, they’re as used to it as I am.’

James couldn’t retort as Remus turned up carrying a French Martini for Sirius.

‘Oh my, I’m helping you with prize essays more in the future,’ Sirius enthused. Remus blushed and James wanted to hit both of them round the head. ‘What’ve you got?’

‘A Bramble. Thought seeing as I was getting a cocktail for you.’

‘Peter,’ said James loudly, as Peter approached carrying two pints. ‘I think we’re drinking for the wrong occasion. These two are on the fancy stuff.’

‘That’s because we are fancy stuff,’ Sirius said. ‘Well, I am, I can’t define Remus like that.’

‘I’m fancy stuff too,’ shrugged Remus.

‘Now, James, if you just admit you’d like a sip of one of these…’

James pulled a face.

‘This isn’t about drinks any more, is it?’

Peter looked confused. James felt no need to explain to him what was being implied because he knew that Peter would look awkward and not know what to say. Then Remus would panic that it was fine for him to be a werewolf but not a gay werewolf and the evening would have to turn into James purposefully talking about football to give Sirius an excuse to cheer up Remus just by giving Remus all his attention. All in all, not how James wanted the night to go, so instead he got up to grab the bar snacks that Peter hadn’t hands to carry.

They talked about the app and about places they’d heard spoken of that needed to be checked out for being secretly fun enough to be included. Sirius and Remus ate James’ entire glass of jelly beans, each taking one at a time in turn seemingly without realising. James wished he could work out what it would take to make Remus admit how he felt about Sirius so that Sirius would stop insisting that he wasn’t doing anything in case it ruined their friendship. At these moments, James had to bite his tongue to point out that they were already doing something, that something being their specific brand of flirting and longing looks. However, with work and football and the app and having fun and trying to be a normal person in front of Lily, he was lacking in time for major plans to make anything happen.

Sirius went outside to smoke and James and Remus went up to the bar. Mostly to see Sirius’ face, James bought a cocktail as well, getting Peter his lager and a new glassful of jelly beans at the same time. True to form, Sirius gave James a grin and then an eye roll upon sight of his drink. James saved his return eye roll for when Sirius and Remus insisted on trying each other’s new drinks with a lot more staring than was strictly necessary. They played bar skittles for a while, until in the end James let Peter win because he had got strangely competitive about it. For his next drink, James returned to the safety of a pint, whilst for some reason that James must’ve missed, Sirius and Remus had the most expensive whisky in the pub, neat, and tried to give tasting notes as they took sips. Peter nearly knocked his drink over his phone and then whilst he went to grab a napkin to mop up the spillage, James noticed that Peter had a text.

‘Who’s Jess?’ he asked Peter when he returned.

‘There’s a Jess?’ said Sirius.

‘Just a girl,’ replied Peter. ‘I met her over the summer, we had a bit of a thing, we text occasionally now.’

‘Just a girl!’ scoffed James. ‘That’s no “just a girl”. Why haven’t we heard of her before?’

‘’s no big deal.’

‘This is my fault,’ James said with a flourish. ‘I’ve not fostered the atmosphere of discussing our love lives, because of my situation with Lily.’

‘Complete lack of anything happening, you mean,’ added Sirius. Remus and Peter laughed. ‘Maybe Peter honestly thinks it’s no big deal. Unlike you, he seems to be able to like girls casually.’

‘Exactly,’ said Peter.

‘No, it’s definitely the atmosphere. In future I’ll be more open with my love life.’

‘Please don’t,’ Remus said.

James couldn’t help himself, so he started to explain all the occasions on which Lily had spoken to him and how he was trying to chill out around her so that these would continue. Sirius, who had heard it all before and perfected his ‘James, be the cool guy I know you are’ expression, looked slightly put upon but didn’t make any rude comments. Maybe he had guessed that James was partly doing it because he was so surprised that Peter hadn’t told them about the girl. His mouth ran away from him because he didn’t know how else to react.

They knew that Peter had a more successful love life than any of them because he wasn’t pining after one person like James knew he and Sirius were and was pretty certain that Remus was, though asking Remus straight out would probably make him deny it and disappear. Sometimes Peter was vague about it, possibly because Sirius had once crashed a drink he was having with a girl and claimed it was accidental (James knew that it actually had been accidental, but Sirius liked to keep up the impression that he might’ve done it on purpose). The idea that Peter wouldn’t tell them about something major like this Jess girl, someone he could’ve mentioned when he visited James’ house or when they came back and updated each other on the rest of the summer, was so unlikely to James that he had tried to imagine they’d just forgotten. The three of them weren’t people to all forget something like that though. They remembered things about their best friends. Peter hadn’t told them in the first place.

Tipsy enough to talk for ages on topics close to his heart, James only stopped talking about Lily when Remus pointed out he should leave because he had a 9 a.m. tutorial the next day. James, who got up early every day, scoffed about lazy humanities students, but he wasn’t going to deny Remus his sleep seeing as he spent half his time looking like he needed more. As they walked home Peter gave out a few more details about Jess, concluding with a sad explanation of how they’d decided not to try and do anything more than a casual summer thing. Sirius slapped him on the back.

‘Love’s a bitch, mate.’ James snorted at Sirius’ words. ‘What was that?’

‘Just think that love might be a bit more reasonable than you think.’

 

\---

 

Sirius knew it was a bad week because it had started with another letter from his family, bringing the count since he had left home to three letters. The first, which had been waiting for him when he arrived at Oxford because they didn’t know James’ address (and only knew he was there because Regulus could use social media), was informing him that they’d thrown out anything he’d left behind and wouldn’t be sending him a penny again. It was old news really. The second reiterated the money sentiment, plus some additional choice words about him, his decisions, and his life. 

The new letter, the third, had told him never to contact anybody in the family, explained in great detail what would happen if he ever tried to darken their doorstep again, and then had a good few paragraphs in his mother’s severe handwriting about the ‘lifestyle choice’ that was his sexuality. It concluded reminding him that he was to never speak to Regulus at Oxford, which Sirius slightly wished he could reply to pointing out that he was unlikely to run into his brother because he actually knew decent people. He had promised himself he wouldn’t reply to any of the letters, however. He showed the letter to James. After the summer, he thought James deserved to know. James had looked angry and then frustrated that he couldn’t do anything. It was a look Sirius had got used to.

As the week continued, Sirius worried about the future, thanks to a chance conversation they had over dinner. Peter had, as usual, started listing everything he knew people who were leaving that year were planning on doing for the following year in an attempt to find something to do himself. Remus didn’t add much to the conversation and Sirius was struck with the pressing realisation that Remus would be leaving too. That Remus could go anywhere and do anything. That Sirius wouldn’t be able to just turn up in Remus’ room and work stretched out on Remus’ bed whilst Remus wrote an essay at his desk. He didn’t tell James because he knew that James would try and reassure him that whatever happened, they’d still see Remus. However well-intentioned, bland reassurance wasn’t what he wanted. He considered a couple of times asking Remus about it more directly, but then he felt guilty for trying to harass Remus about a topic that was probably causing him a lot of worry.

Sirius was staring broodingly out of the window listening to Pink Floyd when James marched in, bringing with him more of the week’s bad news.

‘His blog,’ said James. ‘Look.’

Sirius grabbed his phone and went straight to Riddle’s seemingly anonymous blog. He started reading, with James pacing whilst Sirius read it.

‘Well,’ exhaled Sirius once he reached the end. ‘That’s...clear.’

The post was a list of all the people he disliked and didn’t believe ‘should be at the prestigious institution where I have spent time’ as well as ‘not deserving the same rights as you or me’. The list was bigoted and extensive, including a lot of hatred of specific non-white groups and less specific racism, attacks on the disabled and mentally ill, and offensive descriptions of LGBT people. He also complained about women taking over society and made at least one comment about the reliance on technology that was ridiculous considering he posted on a blog. Sirius didn’t need to ask how he was getting away with it because he knew the answer was internet anonymity.

It wasn’t long before Remus turned up at his room too, having seen the blog post being referred to on social media. They discussed it for a while and then James had to leave for football practice. Remus still looked upset about the post so Sirius dug out the chess board from the suitcase full of crap from his old room that he didn’t actually need in Oxford. His guess that Remus knew how to play was completely correct and they started off playing in virtual silence.

‘Imagine what he’d say if he knew about me,’ said Remus quietly, after a few moves. He was looking down at the board, away from Sirius.

‘He’ll never know. And you have as much of a right to be here as anyone else. Don’t let his hate make you forget that. Even if he is a big name tutor.’

Remus nodded. They continued to play and Sirius began to keep up a stream of chess banter, which Remus gradually joined in with. Sirius needed all the banter he could get because despite having been taught how to play as a child, he never had the ability to play the game with enough tactic or foresight and would just charge around the board trying to take pieces. It didn’t take long for him to lose so they played again and he lost again. It didn’t matter. They both needed the distraction from the week, he thought. Possibly from the year.

 

\---

 

The premature Christmas spirit that appeared at the end of November as the term drew to a close snuck up on them, with most of their spare non-work focus going into making the app. Remus spent far too many evenings doing apparently fun things with a notebook in hand to record any details they would want to be documented. Though they were planning a user input element of some kind, they still wanted a good selection of Oxford secrets and tips on the thing when it was launched. Remus was fairly hazy on the details of how it would be launched as app-making wasn’t a side of technology he knew anything about, but he trusted that they would work something out. James kept saying that he knew some computer science students.

The annual Oxmas dinner in college was looming and James had told them each at least fifty times that he had to try and ask Lily to go with him, even though it was just a formal meal and didn’t require dates. It sounded like other people were also using it as an opportunity to attempt romantic success, however, as Remus overheard at least two other people in the library having similar conundrums as James. Remus refused to admit to himself that he was sorted because he was going with his friends, a term which already included Sirius, but instead told himself that he was happy as he was. James, however, spent two days specifically gathering the courage to ask Lily, who he asked in the dining hall as if she needed to see the location of the invitation whilst being asked. She answered with a casual ‘yeah, alright’ that James then tried to dissect all evening.

‘Anyone would think you’d never been out with a girl,’ said Sirius after three hours of James returning to the topic of ‘did Lily really want to go with him’ whenever he got distracted from the app. ‘Oh god, those school girlfriends weren’t a lie, were they? I’ve not just uncovered your great ruse?’

‘No, they were real, but _Lily_. And it’s not like I’ve been out with anyone here.’

‘Because you’ve been too busy failing with her.’

‘I’ve had other things to focus on.’

‘Like Lily.’

Remus, distracted from the book he was supposed to be reading for a seminar the following day, watched them bicker with interest. Their fake fights were always fun because they both knew neither actually meant any harm and were often trying to help. Peter was trying harder with the work he was doing, though the annoyed look on his face suggested their volume would soon drive him out of James’ room.

‘I don’t see your huge relationship success, seeing as you’re judging me.’

‘I’m better than you!’

‘In first year. The start of first year. These days you don’t even remember to flirt your way into free drinks when you actually need them.’

Sirius pulled a face. Remus wondered if he’d have a retort because James was actually telling the truth. Any surprise at Sirius being single had long since become surprise if Sirius even showed any sign of realising somebody was interested in him.

‘Why would I need to flirt, you guys buy me so many drinks that I’ve forgotten which ruses you have and haven’t used.’

James mock gasped and even Peter laughed.

‘You knew!’

‘Of course. I just gave up protesting once it was clear that you weren’t going to stop, only find more ridiculous ways to get away with it.’

Remus wanted to point out that sometimes he had legitimate reasons for buying Sirius drinks, but he had a feeling that would be misconstrued by James, who already gave him a look whenever he blushed at Sirius’ overdramatic gratitude for being bought things. Thankfully, James was suitably distracted from talking about Lily and after he listed a few schemes for giving Sirius free drinks that were too outlandish even for him, he returned to coding.

That wasn’t the last they heard about Lily’s acceptance of his offer, though Remus had a suspicion that Sirius actually heard far more than he or Peter did. Nevertheless, Sirius had a special reserve of patience for James and on the day of the dinner was still actually offering advice, though it was peppered with snide comments.

‘You have to wear your gown, surely it’s not hard to pick a shirt and tie to be mostly hidden under it,’ said Sirius across the square landing. Remus was returning from a tutorial and had come up the stairs to find James and Sirius holding a conversation from their respective doorways.

‘But isn’t deep purple a bit out there?’ asked James, holding up a shirt.

‘Unless you mean you’re wearing the band as a fetching ensemble, then no, deep purple is not “out there” at all.’

Remus wondered why James was making a fuss because he had a long flowing scholar’s gown thanks to his performance in first year exams and would mostly look like a wizard or a rubbish bat costume. Still, he appreciated that it was a big night for James. Unfortunately, James had spotted him.

‘Remus! What do you think? Purple or not? Sirius insists it’ll look good.’

‘Why don’t you try it on and see?’ suggested Remus.

‘You’re a genius!’

Sirius scoffed and addressed Remus. ‘We’re going in half an hour so we can find good seats and James can meet his date.’ 

The final word was said with a flourish which Remus knew meant that Sirius was pretty excited about James’ night as well. Remus agreed to the meeting time and went into his room to get ready, pleased that unlike James he didn’t need to have a breakdown about what to wear. He did toss up between a couple of shirts and wished that it was a black tie dinner rather than one that only had gowns prescribed. With James preoccupied, he hoped he could spent the night talking to Sirius and remembering Oxmas two years before when they’d gone to the fair and Remus had felt what it was like to have somebody’s attention on you entirely in a good way for the first time.

When Remus stepped out of his room, five minutes early just in case, he found James pacing, wearing the purple shirt, with his gown billowing.

‘Do I look okay?’ he asked as soon as he saw Remus.

‘Yes, great,’ said Remus, and then because he’d spent slightly too much time around James and Sirius. ‘Only slightly like a children’s magician.’

James pouted and then laughed.

‘Oh, we’ve really got to you, haven’t we?’ he said with glee. Peter stepped out of his room at the noise, his non-scholar’s sleeveless gown looking less impressively billowing than James’.

‘Where’s Sirius?’ asked Remus, like it was merely a logistical enquiry.

‘Preening, probably.’

James wasn’t wrong, as Sirius came out a few minutes later wearing a shirt and waistcoat and his own dramatic black gown. However, on Sirius it looked less like a magician and more like a vampire, one with aristocratic cheekbones and sweeping hair. Remus realised what he was thinking and told his brain to shut up whilst James was momentarily distracted from trying to guess if Lily secretly hated purple shirts or him.

‘You put effort in,’ he said to Sirius.

‘People must see me at my best,’ he replied, and then turned from James to wink straight at Remus.

‘You’re incorrigible.’

‘Don’t you have a girl to be meeting right about now?’

‘And you’re making us late,’ pointed out James as they started off down the stairs. It only took a minute to get to the staircase beneath the dining hall. Lily was leaning against the wall nearby, focusing on her phone, a green dress poking out of her black gown. James went over, looking more nervous than Remus had ever seen him, even when they’d told Remus they knew he was a werewolf.

‘Alright,’ James said, and Lily looked up and smiled. ‘You look nice.’

‘Shall we get seats?’ said Peter, and Remus realised he’d been watching James avidly, hoping that it went well.

‘Good idea.’

They settled with Remus next to Sirius and Peter opposite, sitting next to some people from his course. More people sat around them until there was no space for James and Lily to be anywhere close by, which though Remus wanted to see how they got on, he was also glad of, because then they wouldn’t spend the entire dinner watching James. Before Remus could even clock the bottle of wine in front of them, Sirius was offering to pour him a glass. Peter was drawn into conversation with his coursemates and Remus found himself rating James’ chances of a good time to Sirius. They were served pea and ham soup, by which point Sirius was talking about Ovid and Remus wasn’t quite sure how they’d got there as he kept getting distracted by the flashes of silver metal poking up near Sirius’ undone top button that was clearly a cheap wolf necklace from a certain museum.

They talked to Peter over the orange spice sorbet that Remus really wasn’t sure that any Christmas dinner needed, but he looked a little exasperated and returned to listening to the Archeology conversations by the main course, the actual Christmas dinner. Remus sensed that Sirius could launch into melancholy monologues about family Christmases at this point, especially after a couple of glasses of wine, so he told his own Christmas anecdotes and grinned every time Sirius laughed at his family’s not particularly exciting escapades, including melting a chopping board by accidentally putting it into the oven with the turkey on. Soon their mountains of turkey, roast potatoes, stuffing, sprouts, carrots, pigs in blankets, and gravy were demolished and half the table seemed to be debating whether to serve yorkshire puddings with Christmas dinner.

‘Do you remember when we went to the fair?’ asked Sirius when Remus had stopped telling endless anecdotes.

‘Of course.’

‘That was good.’

‘It was.’

Remus couldn’t tell if Sirius was trying to go somewhere or just reminiscing. He left a gap, waiting to find out.

‘Next year will be weird. Y’know, you gone, and Peter.’

‘I was thinking of applying for a master’s,’ stumbled out Remus, having not said the words aloud yet. ‘I’ve been researching. I just didn’t want to say anything until I’d decided.’ He watched Sirius’ expression change from worry to excitement to worry again. ‘But I’m pretty much decided now.’

‘I-’ started Sirius. Remus knew, instinctively, that if they hadn’t been sitting next to each other at a formal dinner, Sirius might have hugged him in relief, an emotion that was very clear on Sirius’ face. ‘I thought I’d never see you again.’

‘It’s me who’s meant to panic about that,’ grinned Remus, because he had. ‘I’m applying here so you might not be able to get rid of me.’

They were grinning at each other, strangely relieved that the other had worried about whether they’d see each other next year, when the next course was served, Christmas pudding with brandy butter. Remus ate whilst stealing glances beside him, reminding himself that Sirius, dressed like he was in a nineteenth century novel, had apparently spent the whole dinner trying to not very subtly ask Remus whether he had plans for next year. That Sirius Black, who had caused a good few students to turn their heads as he walked into the dining hall looking like Dracula’s hot cousin, was panicking about being able to see Remus.

‘How do you think James is doing? Wanna bet whether he’s exploded yet?’

At Sirius’ words, Remus remembered that the night was significant for another reason, that James was on what was possibly a date with Lily Evans, formidable Chemistry student. They spent dessert and coffee deciding whether James had melted into a puddle of joy that she was speaking to him. Peter joined in and the three of them sat finishing off the wine and eating chocolates until James came over, a smile from ear to ear.

‘Good night?’ asked Sirius with raised eyebrows.

‘Not bad. You?’

‘Oh, not bad at all.’

Sirius looked at Remus, who tried and failed to stop himself smiling. Luckily James was clearly on too much of a high from being in Lily’s company to notice or he would’ve said something. Remus didn’t need anyone pointing out how happy he was just to spend an evening with the undivided attention of Sirius Black.

 

\---

 

Christmas in the Potter household was usually a fun affair, but having Sirius in the midst meant they had gone all out with festivity. When he and Sirius got back at the start of December, the house was already decorated with tinsel and decorations. They spent the intervening weeks doing work surrounded by a seemingly endless supply of mince pies and singing along to Christmas songs at terrifying volume levels. 

James could barely believe that Lily occasionally texted him, often with science jokes that he could just about understand having done A Level Chemistry. He had described the entire of their Oxmas dinner date to Sirius the next morning, with Sirius standing drinking coffee half dressed whilst James ate breakfast and threw stuff into his bag for a day of lectures. Surprisingly, he had managed to stop himself from acting like an idiot and had talked like a normal person for the entire evening, helped by the fact that Lily was actually a huge nerd with an impressive ability to keep weird conversations going. They had exchanged numbers before they left, but even then James wasn’t sure if Lily would actually reply to him.

On Christmas Eve James dug out an old games console and a singing game, and he and Sirius spent an evening singing their hearts out. He maintained that their crowning glory was their duet of ‘I Want To Break Free’, though neither of the recipients of their respective texts, Lily and Remus, believed that the duet was actually good. Later, after they’d gone to bed, James went to the bathroom and heard Sirius seemingly talking to himself from inside his room, which made him wonder why Remus was awake so late. James guessed that denial could make a person stay up very late for a Christmas phone call. The next morning James opened his presents from his family whilst Sirius opened his from James, Peter, and Remus which he’d saved especially, and then one from James’ parents. They ate copious amounts of food and played board games with James’ parents whilst wearing Christmas hats.

Peter and Remus came for New Year, but not until the 31st because the full moon was in the week and Remus had agreed with his parents that he would leave it as long as possible before coming. The week passed fairly uneventfully apart from the day that Sirius attempted to only speak in either Latin or Ancient Greek, which caused James to kidnap Artemis and refuse to give up the dog until Sirius spoke in English. It worked because Sirius got bored without either his best friend or his puppy. 

Remus appeared in the station looking pale and tired, but grinning at the sight of them. Peter had crumpled his ticket and took five attempts to get through the barrier whilst two old ladies glared at him. James’ parents made their usual fuss of his friends and then disappeared out the door, warning James that both the house and the dog better be in tact when they returned the next day.

‘Artemis will be perfectly safe,’ Sirius called out after them.

As it turned out, they needn’t have worried. James set up Mario Kart and they raced and ate takeaway pizza. Apart from Sirius’ occasional attempts to sabotage people by distracting them (or, in James’ case, just trying to grab the controller out of his hands), it was distinctly not raucous. James and Peter drank cans of cider that were left over from Christmas, whilst Remus insisted he wasn’t feeling great and Sirius was either not drinking in solidarity or for some other Sirius reason. James smirked to himself when Sirius went out to smoke and Remus went with him, remembering the year before.

By eleven o’clock, they were watching YouTube videos on the TV. It took James a while to notice that Remus was asleep on Sirius’ shoulder, which was why Sirius wasn’t moving at all and telling James what to search for when he had video suggestions. Peter was sprawled on an armchair, his low alcohol tolerance meaning that it was far more obvious he’d been drinking than James had.

‘We didn’t get fireworks,’ pointed out Sirius as it got closer to midnight.

‘It’s not really been a fireworks kind of night,’ James said. ‘Too much effort.’

‘We could watch a video of some,’ suggested Peter.

‘We’ll go outside after midnight and watch the nearby ones.’

‘James, do you want another midnight kiss?’

‘I’m fine without.’

‘I guess Lily might get jealous.’

‘Seeing as last time you found it horrible, I doubt it.’

‘But you’d tell her?’

James shrugged. 

‘Guess so. Make for some fun chat.’

‘Then I’ll have to, so you’ve got an excuse to text her.’

‘What’s going on?’ Peter asked, having apparently fallen asleep for a second.

‘I’m sorting out midnight kisses,’ replied Sirius. ‘Want one?’ Peter shook his head. ‘Fine, you’ll get a forehead kiss.’

Sirius turned his head to look at Remus and James realised they should probably give him the option to see in the new year.

‘Wake him up, Sirius, see if he wants to do the countdown.’

Sirius did, gently muttering Remus’ name until he opened his eyes.

‘Moony, you’ve gotta wake up if you don’t want to miss the point of the evening.’

Remus wasn’t even awake enough to pull a face at the nickname, but lifted up his head and widened his eyes, trying to wake up. He then looked at where he’d been sleeping.

‘How Sirius’ shoulder was comfortable enough for you, I don’t know,’ said James. ‘Let’s go outside.’

Sirius made Remus put on his leather jacket despite it being slightly too small for Remus, insisting he’d get colder because he’d been sleeping. 

‘Obvious,’ James fake coughed as he walked past Sirius, who elbowed him in return. They trooped into the garden and James got the BBC countdown playing on his phone so they knew when exactly to celebrate. Outside was freezing and James didn’t envy Sirius and Remus who hadn’t even been drinking. Peter looked dazed and slightly confused at being outside. It was distinctly not a New Year party, more of a New Year quiet hangout. They did muster up enough energy to shout the countdown and yell ‘Happy New Year’ in each other’s faces and then begin singing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ incredibly badly. Fireworks started up from neighbouring gardens.

‘Right, as promised,’ said Sirius, then stepped over and kissed James on the lips for the second year running. ‘Still urgh.’ 

He pecked Peter’s head, which was tough because Peter had sat down once they’d finished singing. James looked over at Remus, who was shivering despite the jacket. Sirius went over and wrapped his arms around Remus. ‘Don’t freeze,’ was all that James could make out Sirius saying. Sirius stayed in that position as they watched the fireworks, though that didn’t stop him joining James in doing a comedy commentary of every firework.

‘And with that glorious specimen, I think we are all over. That’s it from me. Sirius?’

‘That’s all from me too, James. Remember kids, if you don’t give fireworks the excitement they require, they’ll steal your firstborn.’

‘You two are idiots,’ mumbled Remus. ‘Can we go back inside now?’

James hauled Peter up from his seat on the grass. Back inside, they tumbled back onto the sofas. Remus fell back asleep almost instantly with his head on Sirius’ lap, still wearing the leather jacket. James took a photo on his phone to annoy Remus with in the future and put some crap late night stuff on the TV with the sound down low. He thought Peter might fall asleep too, but then he started talking.

‘What am I going to do?’

James glanced at Sirius who looked equally baffled.

‘About what, Pete?’ Sirius asked.

‘In life. Next year. Whenever.’

‘You’ll work something out,’ said James. ‘You don’t have to rush.’

‘And we’ll always offer only slightly joke options if you want,’ added Sirius. James expected further panic from Peter, but then Peter’s head jolted and it was clear he had suddenly fallen asleep.

‘Wow, he’s actually sleep.’

‘That was very short lived panic,’ said Sirius.

‘I don’t think he got over it from our few words of advice.’

‘It was solid advice.’ Sirius looked around at their sleeping friends. ‘This has not been a wild Potter party.’

‘No, I suppose inviting a tired werewolf just after the full moon and someone with the alcohol tolerance of a mouse didn’t help.’

‘Shall we have a customary deep chat seeing as I’m stuck sitting here for the near future?’

‘You’re sober though.’

‘Won’t stop me being deep. See, right now I’m picturing the universe. Deep.’

James waited a second and then went for it.

‘So why won’t you tell him how you feel?’ Sirius’ eyes widened and he nodded down at his lap. ‘He’s asleep, stop worrying. You can’t say he doesn’t trust you. I’ve never seen any hint that he’d sleep on anybody else. Ever.’

‘Maybe if you offered…’

‘Sirius…’

‘He doesn’t need me.’ Sirius paused, but James waited. He knew how to make Sirius talk: give him a silence to fill. ‘I ran away from home. I’m loud and reckless and an idiot. You know, I think you called me a “complete fucking bastard” if I remember correctly. I have a family who might come after him because they hate me. He has enough on his plate without that.’

‘That’s not-’

‘I don’t want to lose this, James.’ He nodded down at his lap again. ‘If I fuck it up, that’s our friendship group ruined. And I don’t know how to do a relationship. I couldn’t even stay at one school for more than a couple of years or keep my family happy until I left Oxford. I can live with how things are. Stable. Without him hating me.’

James stared. Maybe he had been right, and sorting this out was beyond his ability.

‘You’re a stupid twat. You can’t do committing? You’ve been my best friend for two and a half years. My mum almost likes you more than me. You come to every single one of my football matches even though you have no interest in sport. You let Remus sit in your room after every full moon regardless of what you’re doing. You’ve had that leather jacket longer than Peter has even known what the word “anthropology” means.’

Sirius laughed. Remus moved in his sleep and Sirius and James exchanged a wordless look of ‘this conversation is ending now’, though James wasn’t sure that he’d fully made his point yet. They found a middle of the night omnibus of Come Dine With Me and left it on whilst they made occasional comments and James slowly fell asleep stretched across a whole sofa. When he woke up, daylight was streaming through the windows and Sirius was dozing with his head propped up by a cushion on the arm of the sofa. The other two hadn’t moved. He didn’t think it was a mark of a party that none of them, not counting Sirius who just didn’t have the heart to move Remus, had been awake enough to bother to actually go to bed.


	6. Third Year, Part Two

Sirius had two start-of-term essays due, four out-of-the-way pubs to check out for the app, and a pair of ripped jeans to sew back up because the rips weren’t in places that looked cool. He was just about able to fit in spending a couple of hours listening to James describe the drink he’d gone for with Lily the night they’d got back in Oxford and that was when he realised that he needed to do something else more important than the work or the app. He needed to have a chat with Lily. It wasn’t difficult to achieve: he stole her number out of James’ phone - of course they knew each other’s passcodes - and texted asking if they could meet up to talk about James. She replied with ‘I was waiting for this’ and Sirius decided that she had passed the first test at least. He asked her to meet him at one of the pubs that needed to be scouted out for a potential app mention to kill two birds with one stone, though she probably thought he had a weird choice in drinking establishments far away from their college.

On the day he was meeting Lily, he told Remus of his plan to vet her for her intentions and suitability. They were in the library so there wasn’t much room for exclamations, but Remus looked like he wanted to be louder than he was when he hissed ‘I can’t decide if you’re very clever or terrible, you know’ and then suggested to check her stance on football and sport in general.

‘Obviously I was going to ask that.’

‘I don’t know, maybe you were only going to check her musical opinions and how much she didn’t mind the fact you never bother to knock when you walk into James’ room.’

‘Surely she’ll understand that knocking is a waste of good time.’

‘Which means you’ve seen him naked how many times?’

‘Oh, too many to count by now. He’s into sports, that’s what they do.’

‘I’m really not sure where you get your information on sports from.’ Sirius gave Remus a look. ‘Oh, it’s gay romance novels isn’t it?’

‘I’m going to remember how quickly you guessed that.’

‘I can’t always stick to reading bad historical fiction to laugh at the inaccuracies.’

‘Is this conversation one we don’t tell anybody else about?’

‘Oh no, I can’t wait to see James’ reaction when you tell him that you think all sport is just the set-up for having sex.’

‘Remus! You said “sex” in a library, I’m shocked.’

Sirius knew he was flirting. He knew that if James had been there, he would’ve said something about being obvious or pointed out that Remus didn’t seem to mind. That didn’t matter. Sirius’ ability to talk to Remus didn’t affect the fact that he could also mess everything up with one small slip of his tongue or one stupid act. They returned to working silently because start-of-term work waited for no man, no matter how urgent his flirting.

Over dinner, James tried to pressure Sirius into only saying nice things about him to Lily whilst Peter and Remus gave unhelpful suggestions like ‘tell her that he owns a cuddly Ewok’ and ‘bring up his strange affinity with deer’. Sirius kept up an enigmatic smile and didn’t promise anything. Back in his room, he checked that his outfit was as fully Sirius Black as he could make it, then set off to talk to James’ not yet girlfriend. The night was cold but thankfully not wet, as he’d prioritised look over practicality so that Lily knew what she was dealing with. The pub was a twenty-five-minute walk away and he realised that he should have met Lily in college and walked with her, though he was perfectly happy with earphones and his music for company.

When he reached the pub, he spotted Lily sitting at a table with a pint in front of her. He went to buy a drink; contrary to James’ beliefs, his limited budget did stretch to an occasional drink. Lily was reading a book and when Sirius got close enough he could see that her hoodie was for a Chemistry event. It looked like they were drinking the same cider and her book was Filth by Irvine Welsh, not something he would’ve guessed she liked. So far, his appraisal was leaning towards the positive.

‘Lily,’ he said when she didn’t look up from her book. She raised her eyes and slowly reached for her bookmark.

‘Sirius.’

‘Can I sit?’

‘Seeing as you wanted to meet for a chat, you probably should.’ She smiled as he sat down. ‘Why did you choose this random pub?’

‘If I tell you, you’ll think we’re crazy.’

‘Try me.’

‘We’re building an app of the secret and lesser-known hotspots of Oxford. I needed to check out this place to see if it meets the standard.’

‘So, basically, we need to get the full experience of the place for your project?’

‘Basically. Once we’ve had a chat about James.’

‘You threaten me about breaking his heart, that sort of thing?’

‘On the agenda, yes. And I have questions to ask you.’

‘Only if I can ask some in return.’

Sirius pretended to think.

‘That seems fair.’

‘Okay, I’m ready for the questions. Can I pass?’

‘This isn’t Newsnight, of course you can. Right, name?’

She stared at him.

‘Lily Evans.’

‘Age?’

‘Same as you.’

He nearly asked ‘how do you know?’ and then remembered he was trying to be quick fire and intimidating.

‘Subject?’

‘Chemistry.’

‘Opinions on football?’

She changed her stare into a grin.

‘Decent sport, played it when I was about twelve.’

‘And then stopped?’

‘Time, money, being a teenager.’

‘Any notable relationship history?’

‘Pass.’

‘Attracted to?’

‘Humour, nice smile, athleticism in both guys and girls. Which I suppose is a bit ironic seeing as I think walking places makes me quite active.’

Sirius paused and grinned.

‘Oh, you’re a member. That is good news. If you can help me to get James to admit he finds guys attractive I’ll give you a badge.’

‘Is this so you can steal him from me?’

Sirius pulled a face.

‘Oh god no. He is not…I got over the sporty guy phase quite a long time ago.’

‘No, you’re about the lanky History types, aren’t you?’

Lily looked at him innocently.

‘What has James said to you?’

‘Nothing. But I do go to the same college as you.’

Sirius went to protest that he couldn’t be that obvious, but instead returned to his purpose.

‘What are your intentions with James?’

‘Shotgun wedding.’

‘I’ll give you points for wit if not for the answer.’

Sirius took a long sip of his cider and Lily took her chance.

‘Right, my turn. What doesn’t James want me to know?’

‘That you don’t get him without me.’

‘Guessed that. What’s his family like?’

‘They’re lovely, but also...they’re the rich liberal type, they’ll make a big fuss of meeting you and stuff, but they’re a little overwhelming. Plus I live there in the holidays so you’ll have to compete with me for their affections.’

‘So far it sounds like I get a lot of you.’

‘More than most people are ever blessed with.’

‘His best trait?’

‘Would do literally anything for his friends.’

‘Worst?’

‘Unhealthy interest in going running before most people are awake.’

Lily looked down at her empty glass and gestured at Sirius’.

‘Do you want another drink?’ Sirius started to make a vague mumbling sound to function as an excuse. ‘I’m paying as long as you tell me more about James.’

‘You have a deal.’

True to his word, Sirius spent their second pints answering more questions about James, including eventually telling her anecdotes that he knew from either James or his mum about James’ childhood. The more he spoke, the more he knew that Lily would only be asking if she had an actual interest in James so that was his main question sorted. When she went to the bathroom he checked his phone, ignored James’ texts, and messaged Remus saying that it was going well.

‘The ladies is decent, though could’ve been more interesting.’

Sirius blinked at her for a second then realised.

‘Right. Not usually a detail I comment on.’

‘Shall we explore the rest?’

‘Of the toilets?’

‘Of the pub.’

They left their table and looked at a log-burning fireplace, various tables in small nooks, and a selection of leather bound books. Sirius went outside to smoke and Lily came too, appraising the pub’s exterior with a serious look. Lily bought them a third pint each whilst Sirius casually looked behind the bar to suss out the drinks selection and snack options. After a moment he noticed that Lily was asking the woman behind the bar about their events and highlights.

‘Has a monthly pub quiz and some live music, but I think only of the folk variety so not sure it counts,’ she reported back as they went back to their table.

‘Things are not looking good for this place.’

They spent their third pints discussing music, weird Oxford problems, and then Sirius had a rant about James’ supposed music taste.

‘Of course, don’t let that put you off him, he is easily swayed to listen to what you want.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind.’

‘Right, we should probably leave before the alcohol starts to make me think this place is nicer than it is.’

Lily nodded in agreement.

‘We can’t let it cheat because it sells strong cider that we were foolish enough to drink.’

 

\---

 

Remus hadn’t planned on spending his evening sitting with James to stop him from turning up at the pub that Sirius and Lily were meeting at. Regardless, that was exactly what he did, working on the app with James and watching him jump every time he thought he heard someone on the stairs (James had wedged his door open so that he wouldn’t miss Sirius coming back). By the time it got to half ten, Remus thought James might explode if Sirius wasn’t back soon. It had been over an hour since Sirius had told Remus that things were going well and without more information, James was going to assume something terrible had happened.

Suddenly voices were coming from somewhere below their floor. James was on his feet, able to recognise Sirius’ voice easily, and Remus had a suspicion that was confirmed when both Sirius and Lily came up the stairs.

‘I told you he’d be waiting,’ Sirius said to Lily and she grinned. ‘James, you’ll have my official confirmation in writing in a few days, but for now, she’s good. Drinks good cider and comes out far more casually than me.’

Remus’ head whipped round to look at James, who did not miss a beat.

‘More casually than you? You outright stated that you were gay even though I already knew. She could’ve got a banner and it could’ve been more casual.’

‘He’s misrepresenting me, I forgot to tell you that’s one of his flaws,’ Sirius said to Lily.

‘Just when it was going so well,’ she replied, and then walked over to James. ‘I bought your best friend multiple drinks in exchange for information and that pub should not be on your app. Want to go out tomorrow?’

‘Meet at seven?’

‘Right here,’ Lily pointed down at the ground.

‘Okay, it’s a date.’

Lily waved at him. ‘See you tomorrow. Night, Remus,’ she said in his direction, then went back past Sirius. ‘I want that badge, Sirius.’

‘You have to earn it,’ he replied as she went down the stairs.

‘What does she have to earn?’ James asked the second she was gone.

‘James, if I tell you it’ll be pointless. Shall we go into your room so you can scream like an excited child going to Disneyland?’

James nodded.

‘Remus was stopping me from marching up there to check what was going on.’

‘Remus has sense,’ said Sirius, grinning at Remus. ‘You should have faith in me. Where’s Peter?’

James and Remus looked at each other.

‘We don’t know,’ Remus said. ‘Maybe out with someone? A girl? He’s not been around all evening.’

‘Oh, well, guess he’ll miss my account of what Lily and I discussed. Did you know she played football when she was younger?’

 

\---

 

Being officially in a relationship with James Potter meant that Lily got a few interested (or, more likely, nosy) looks around college. People she’d never really spoken to said hi just because she and James were eating together and they wanted to peer at them. Various friends reported people asking them about it; one person asked Mary if Lily knew that meant she was actually with all four of them. Thankfully in the chemistry labs she simply confirmed what her coursemates had heard - yes, he was the sporty mathematician, that is a kind of person who exists - and then they continued with their usual work.

James found it hilarious, saying he’d never had this much attention before. Lily didn’t point out that somehow the four of them got far more attention than they realised, helped by the fact that James and Sirius were loud and easily distinguishable. Over her time in Oxford, she’d heard a good number of different people discussing them and what they were like, which hadn’t helped her tendency to avoid James’ attempts to talk to her in case he was big-headed from all that attention. After having spent time with them, she realised they had no real idea, though she thought Sirius might have a better clue than the others as he occasionally made jokes about rumours that might exist about them (she did have to confirm to him that yes, a lot of people thought he was sleeping with either James, Remus, or both of them, to which he looked fairly proud).

She purposefully avoided going anywhere near Severus’ college or the departments he had lectures in, hoping that she would never run into him, though she knew that in the small city of Oxford that would be difficult. It wasn’t that she was worried or scared of what he would say, but that she didn’t want to accidentally say something to fuel all his hatred any further. His creepy friends would no doubt have filled him in on her relationship status because they seemed to know everything, especially due to their connections to Sirius’ family and James’ connection to Sirius. She imagined the scene in her head, Severus’ accusatory ‘what do you even see in him?’ and his refusal to listen to her explanation, how James wasn’t filled with hate or trying to control her, but funny and surprisingly caring and a lot cleverer than he appeared.

They had only been together a few weeks when Lily got a taste of James’ friendship group in crisis mode. It was a Thursday evening and she went up to James’ room once she’d finished her work, assuming they’d watch a film or something seeing as they had both been in their respective departments all day. On James’ door was a Post-It note reading ‘In Sirius’ room, no need to knock’. Lily went round the square landing to the next door and pushed it open, wondering if something was going on. She thought it could be their app or something as they all seemed pretty set on getting it done soon before they would need to start revising for their final exams in the foreseeable future.

‘-they’re fucking dickheads, it doesn’t matter what happened, it’s not something they should keep from you.’

James was talking as Lily walked in. He was sitting on Sirius’ desk chair, looking over at Sirius who was on his bed staring blankly back at James. Remus was on the floor next to Sirius’ bed and Peter on the floor across the room. She didn’t understand the tableau, but it was clear from James’ tone that something was wrong. Lily wasn’t sure if she should be intruding, but James’ note had told her to come in.

‘Lily,’ said Sirius, his tone weird though she couldn’t place why. ‘Come in, turf James off the chair if you want.’

She looked around at their faces, all far more serious than she was used to seeing. Unsure if she should ask, she stepped towards James, gesturing that he should stay on the chair, and sat down on the floor beside him. James leaned down to her, talking in a low voice that was still audible across the room.

‘Sirius just found out that his decent uncle died a few days ago and his family weren’t going to tell him. Luckily he has like one nice cousin who also ran away but heard the news eventually and called him. We’re in here for moral support.’

‘Sirius did ask us to be,’ Remus added before Lily could ask. She looked up at Sirius, who seemed stunned and was tapping his fingers on his bed forcefully.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, definitely feeling she should leave.

‘Thanks,’ replied Sirius. ‘Please share something interesting from your day, the others have all run out of stories and I’ve run out of anger to rant about my family so the mood has got pretty sombre.’

Lily ignored how much she felt like an interloper and followed Sirius’ request, starting with the day’s minor events and moving onto the Chemistry labs anecdotes that her friends had all heard too many times by now. This fresh audience was appreciative, however, and after she’d finished all the best ones, she patiently answered Peter’s questions about what science students were actually like, ignoring James’ laughter in the background at Peter’s questions. Then the guys started telling her their group stories, which was even more effective because Sirius couldn’t help but join in, especially when they all tried to explain James’ drunken chasing a stag but couldn’t because they were all laughing too hard remembering it. Sirius smoked with his head out of the window, something completely prohibited, but which it was clear none of them were going to comment on tonight.

Time passed without them really noticing. Peter yawned every few minutes. Lily rested her head against James’ leg, tired but not actually sleepy. Sirius told Remus to sit on his bed after Remus had complained he had a numb arse, which made Lily mutter ‘got him into bed pretty easily’ and James reply with a whispered ‘this isn’t the first time’. She took in Sirius’ room, which she knew from James contained everything Sirius owned due to his refusal to leave anything at the Potters’ during term time for what James called ‘stupid reasons’. There were books stacked against spare wall space, scarves over everywhere it was possible to hang a scarf, and a poster of David Bowie that was definitely not allowed to be blu-tacked to the wall.

‘He was always so mysterious to me as a kid,’ Sirius started saying. ‘This lone uncle appearing at family occasions, usually wearing a cravat. He gave me a book on myths and legends once so maybe he’s why I’m here. My mother used to say “Uncle Al” with this weird facial expression that probably meant she wished he’d do something she could actively dislike rather than having to put up with him and pretend to be nice. Possibly why he left me money, just to finally piss her off properly.’

‘Can’t believe you’re inheriting money and a bloody scooter,’ said James. ‘How ridiculously cool.’

‘He used to turn up to events on it like some mod from the past. Didn’t think I’d get it though. When Andromeda told me I was in his will I thought it would be some little memento or returning the drawings I sent him as a child.’

Eventually Peter whacked his head against the wardrobe when he nearly fell asleep and Sirius said it was okay if they needed to leave. James stood up and helped pull Lily up from the floor, both of them yawning to prove that they weren’t just running away. Remus didn’t move.

‘I don’t have anything until the afternoon tomorrow,’ Remus said in explanation. ‘I can stay.’

James gave him a nod and Lily recognised that the lack of comment meant that the situation was important enough to not have to highlight Remus and Sirius’ obvious thing going on.

‘Text, yeah? Anything,’ James said simply to Sirius, who nodded.

‘Cheers, guys.’

Leaving Sirius’ room, Lily felt that she had passed some milestone and that her and James had better work out now, because she had seen further into their group and it wasn’t such a bad place.

 

\---

 

Sirius had a bright red scooter and money to ensure he was a little more able to afford the next year and a half. He also had a seething anger at his family that had flared up again after he’d done so well at starting to not care about them. After leaving home, he had barely thought about seeing the odd decent family member and it had been over a year since he’d seen his uncle. Sirius vowed to try and meet up with his cousin Andromeda at some point, who had also escaped the family but by marrying someone they completely hated, a nice Scottish mechanic called Ted who Sirius had only met once. She was older than him, old enough that he was a little cousin to her and a novelty as she only had sisters. That was useful, as Sirius didn’t have anywhere to keep a scooter and Andromeda had been happy to keep it at her house and let Ted tinker with it to make sure it worked fine. Sadly, this meant that he couldn’t do any posing with it, and had to settle for Andromeda emailing him pictures so he could prove it existed.

To distract himself, he spent a week of evenings walking around Oxford looking for hidden secrets, during which he did actually find a selection of interesting locations that were mostly outside and free. It was also nice to escape the work going on in James’ room, where they congregated once their academic work was done to finish off the app and where Peter kept having small breakdowns about his future. Remus had recently got an offer to do the master’s degree in Oxford he had applied to, meaning that Peter was the only person who didn’t know what they were doing the following year. Sirius tried to give advice, but he knew that Peter was sceptical about his reassurance because Sirius himself had another year to wait. James had the same problem and had given up offering advice, opting for just trying to sound calming and certain that things would work out.

On Saturday afternoon they were putting together the finishing touches on the app. The design was like fake parchment, with Peter’s justification that Oxford was old so it suited the theme. Sirius thought it looked pretty impressive considering they’d knocked it together in their virtually nonexistent spare time. James insisted that it should have a password to get into it, which they could then leave on mysterious posters and notes around Oxford so that only people who noticed such things would be able to check it out. They settled on ‘up to no good’ because Sirius said it could be written as a distinctive hashtag then, and fitted their desire for only people who were looking for something out of the ordinary.

‘That’s that, then,’ said James finally, leaning back in his chair. ‘It’s done, I’d say.’

‘What do we do now?’ Peter asked.

‘This is where my computer science contacts come in handy. They like to prove they’re more useful than mathematicians so were very willing to look over, tweak, and sort out getting the app approved and onto the app store, seeing as that’s what they all apparently do for fun anyway.’

Sirius wasn’t sure this was true, but he had been with James when he’d offered a few of the college’s computer science students money if they’d help out. They had looked quite excited to correct a mathematician’s coding. Sirius had kept out of it, folding his arms next to James like they were doing some dodgy deal and he was there for protection.

‘So can we celebrate?’

‘Pete, I think we’ve deserved it. What do you say, guys?’

They agreed. Sirius thought he saw James and Remus exchange a look, but they were too quick to really tell. After fifteen minutes of suggestions of varying quality, Sirius’ option of going out for Chinese food was accepted and they set off for a nearby restaurant. None of them could really use chopsticks so it was a slow going meal, albeit a delicious one.

‘So, now that we’ve conquered the app world, what’s next?’ James said, waving his chopsticks wildly.

‘Now that you’re getting the romantic world covered, we’re running out of options,’ replied Sirius. ‘Maybe the dance world?’

‘Don’t kid yourself,’ said Remus quickly.

‘Oi!’

‘We’ve seen you dancing.’

‘Never to the right music.’

‘Sometimes, mate,’ James laughed. ‘You sound like a right wanker.’

‘Maybe, but your girlfriend agrees that it’s good music.’

‘You are not using that every time you want to prove your music taste is the best.’

‘I’m sure he will,’ said Remus.

Their bill and fortune cookies came then, before Sirius could agree that he would. They all grabbed one, trying to guess which would be best.

‘Alright, binding life paths are coming from these cookies. How fucked are we all?’ Sirius grinned at the others.

Peter cracked his first and started nibbling at the cookie whilst he turned over the slip of paper.

‘“All your fingers can’t be the same length”,’ he read out. The other three burst out laughing. ‘What the fuck?’

‘Show us your hands,’ Sirius demanded. Peter held them out. ‘Nope, not the same length. Must be true.’

‘But what does it mean?’

‘That someone’s going to chop one of your fingers off,’ suggested Remus. Peter squeaked at the thought. James cracked open his cookie.

‘“Next full moon brings an enchanting evening”. Remus, I must have yours!’

Remus snorted.

‘Enchanting isn’t the word. I assume you’ll be seeing Lily that night, then?’

‘Let’s see what yours is before I’m sure we’ve not got the wrong ones.’

‘That’s not how it works,’ Remus protested, but he opened his nonetheless. ‘“If you don’t give something, you won’t get anything”. Wow, mine’s just explaining capitalism.’

‘Maybe it’s more metaphorical,’ said James. ‘But I’ll let you keep it anyway. Right, Sirius. What have you got?’

‘“Big journeys begin with a small step”.’

‘Ooooh,’ said the other three in unison.

‘It’s not meaningful, guys. It’s just true. The journey back to college begins with a small step too.’

‘At least yours wasn’t just telling you that you have to pay for your food,’ said Remus.

‘Stop moaning you two, those are your fortunes now. There’s no questioning the great workings of cookie fate.’

Once they’d sorted out the bill, Sirius stood up and took a step towards the door.

‘There, my small step is sorted.’

Unfortunately Remus hadn’t noticed that Sirius had stopped moving and walked straight into him. Sirius stumbled forward from the impact.

‘Not such a successful step,’ said James, laughing.

As they walked back to college, Sirius realised that he was feeling better. His anger at his family was starting to recede again, being overtaken by the knowledge that he was living his own life without them. They spent the rest of the evening playing cards in James’ room, though James and Sirius’ beloved invention Cheating Snap only went one game before Remus and Peter refused to continue because it was too violent.

‘Watch out, or you’ll make one of Peter’s fingers shorter than the others,’ said Remus, shaking his head in mock reproach.

 

\---

 

Remus was suspicious when James knocked on his door and asked if he wanted to go out for coffee. Suspicious because Sirius wasn’t with him, suspicious because James never just went out for a coffee, suspicious because James had on his ‘I have a plan’ face. However, Remus welcomed the distraction from writing an essay - one of a limited number left of his undergraduate career that wasn’t in an exam, as his tutor had kindly pointed out - and he was intrigued what James was plotting, anyway. The weather was drizzly and downcast so they went to a Café Nero that wasn’t too far away. James bought a hot chocolate whilst loudly telling Remus that there was no shame in getting hot chocolate from a coffee shop. Remus agreed with him, but got coffee because it might help with the essay later.

They sat at a table near the back and James started making pointless observations about their surroundings.

‘James, are we here for a reason?’

‘What?’ James looked on edge. ‘Why would you say that?’

‘Because you just started describing the fake plant behind me and if that wasn’t stalling then you really need to learn the art of conversation.’

‘There was nothing else obvious to stall about.’

‘Why are you stalling?’

James tried to take a sip of his drink, but it was clearly too hot.

‘Because I have to say something important.’ Remus knew that his immediate panic must’ve appeared on his face, as James held up a hand. ‘Not something bad. Just...important. And I want to do it right.’

‘If you’re declaring that you love me, you probably should’ve spoken to Lily first, explained the situation,’ said Remus, becoming the joking one because James was so awkwardly serious.

‘She’d probably encourage it.’

‘If Sirius is to be believed, then yes, they have some kind of agreement.’ Remus thought that James would ask about that, but instead he jumped at Sirius’ name. ‘This isn’t something bad about Sirius, is it? You said it wasn’t bad.’

‘It’s not. It’s just...you. I need to know.’ James paused. ‘Have you worked out how you feel about him?’

Remus wanted to play dumb, to ask who James meant and do some stalling of his own. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. Not with James there, asking in earnest, looking supportive.

‘I- well, it’s complicated…’

‘Is it? Or did it just take you a while to realise what you were doing and how you felt so it seems complicated?’

‘It is complicated. He’s Sirius.’

‘I won’t judge. I have it on good authority that he is quite attractive.’

Remus laughed slightly hysterically.

‘Was that from him?’

‘Other people as well. Presumably you too.’

‘I won’t deny it.’

‘Listen, I’m not just here to try and make you confess things.’ Remus raised his eyebrows. ‘You see, I need you to realise that the ball is in your court. He’s been wanting to play for too long and he doesn’t believe that he wouldn’t mess up the game before it could really start.’

‘Why did this have to be a sports metaphor?’

‘They’re commonplace. What I’m trying to say is, if you know how you feel, and you must realise that he feels similarly because he’s completely obvious, then I think it’s up to you to take a step. Not just think. I know, because I’ve spent over a year trying to fathom out Sirius’ logic of not doing anything and argue that he should. And it hasn’t worked.’

Remus blinked. James was telling him to do something about Sirius, ask him out or tell him how he felt or whatever, because Sirius wasn’t going to. And presumably, he realised, James and Sirius had discussed it at least a few times.

‘Over a year?’ he asked.

‘Since he told me. And only because I prompted him.’

‘Has he been…“obvious” for that long?’

‘Longer. He’s an idiot. Great at giving me advice about Lily and how to act like myself and ask her out non-obnoxiously. Not so good at advising himself. You didn’t know?’

‘I had an inkling.’

It was hard for Remus to describe, how he knew that they were flirting but also it had taken him a long time to figure out his own feelings and then know that Sirius was acting in a way different to how he acted with anybody else. How it felt like something, but not a specific enough something for him to be sure. It was beyond his realm of experience; his relationship history was a short-lived attempt to go out with a girl at school which she had ended out of kindness to him because he had seemed awkward and unhappy but uncertain what to do. Obviously he had been unable to tell her that part of the problem was that he was a werewolf.

‘Well, now you’ve heard it from me. If you want something to happen, do something, that’s my suggestion.’

They moved onto less feelings-based topics whilst they drank their drinks. Remus wanted to think about what James had said, but he also needed to finish his essay. Once back in his room, he gave himself two hours to finish the essay and then he would be allowed to think about other things. Other things like Sirius Black.

With fifteen minutes to spare from his self-imposed deadline, the essay was done. For the rest of the evening, his brain was constantly whirring with questions, doubts, and a growing excitement that he was, actually, going to do something. It was clear from the fact James had said anything at all that it wouldn’t be a total failure if Remus said something to Sirius, and this logic meant that Remus was able to formulate a plan. He wanted to give Sirius limited time to panic, overthink, or selflessly refuse for Remus’ own good. He didn’t want to do some awkward declaration of feelings that seemed vague or without a point. However terrifying, it had to work.

The next day, Remus waited until around lunchtime and then texted Sirius.

_Are you free this evening?_

Sirius replied almost instantly.

_Yes, why?_

Remus retyped his response three times before sending it. 

_We’re going out for dinner, my treat. I’ll knock at 6. Dress for a date._

He wasn’t sure if he’d get a response to that, but seconds later he did. 

_Smart or casual?_

Remus replied _casual_ and turned his attention to what he was wearing and where they were actually going to go. He settled on a Moroccan place that he’d never heard anybody say they were going to, hoping that meant they wouldn’t run into anybody they knew. After half an hour of attempting to read a book on British social history in the twentieth century, he received a text from James that was just three exclamation marks, meaning that he must’ve got out of his lecture to some kind of update from Sirius. The afternoon went slowly, with Remus tidying his room, organising his folders, and sorting out the documents on his computer to an unnecessary level. He had to put on music to stop himself from listening to see if James and Sirius might be talking in the corridor outside, opting for one of the many playlists that Sirius had made him in an attempt to make Remus appreciate the music he liked.

At half five he changed out of his hoodie into a shirt and jumper, though he knew that he’d look like somebody’s square cousin in comparison to Sirius. He heard James go into Sirius’ room then leave and go into his own. At ten to six he heard James and Peter go off to dinner in the dining hall. Remus guessed that James had left before six on purpose. He paced around until his phone read 17:58 and then decided that it would take two minutes to walk a few metres so left his room and locked the door. From Sirius’ room he could hear music which probably meant that Sirius wasn’t ready yet, but he knocked anyway, determined.

‘Come in!’ 

Remus opened the door and stepped inside. Sirius was sitting on his bed, bent over, lacing up his boots. They were the tallest ones he owned, a deep burgundy pair that he didn’t wear much because he’d never properly worn them in and he would complain if he had to walk any distance in them. Remus wondered if it was weird that he knew that but was still very nervous about the evening.

‘You were very prompt,’ said Sirius, finishing his laces and standing up.

‘Got to be on time,’ Remus replied stupidly. Sirius laughed and looked around for something. Grabbing his leather jacket off a chair, he gestured at the door.

‘Shall we go?’

Remus nodded. He’d assumed that Sirius would look cooler than him, but he hadn’t quite banked on the full look: a burgundy shirt that matched the boots and had several undone buttons at the collar revealing multiple necklaces, tight black jeans with rips at the knees, and Sirius’ usual sweeping hair but somehow better, messed up and falling into his eyes. He stared for a moment, committing the image to memory as the way that Sirius had dressed when told to find an outfit for a date with him, Remus Lupin, who thought that switching a hoodie for a jumper meant he was putting effort in.

They walked through college and at least three people gave Sirius longer looks than necessary when passing them. Remus wasn’t sure if that was something that happened a lot and he hadn’t noticed when he wasn’t incredibly aware of who he was with, or if Sirius was actually looking noticeably more attractive than usual. Sirius, of course didn’t notice at all, but just continued his complaints about Greek philosophy like they were walking to the library. Remus led the way once they were out on the street, with Sirius not even asking where they were going. The fifteen-minute walk felt longer than usual.

‘Right, here,’ Remus said, gesturing once they reached the restaurant. Sirius followed him in and they were shown to a table. They both looked at the menu, not saying anything, with the restaurant’s music playing through their silence.

‘So, unless you’ve got your heart set on a dish, fancy the two person sharing selection thing?’ Sirius asked whilst Remus was worrying about whether he was meant to act any different to how they usually would. ‘There’s just too much good stuff to choose from otherwise.’

‘That sounds good.’

‘We don’t have to act like this is particularly different, you know.’

Remus looked up from his menu.

‘You read my mind.’

‘I could see the cogs whirring with uncertainty.’

They ordered the sharing two person meal and a jug of free tap water in true student fashion.

‘So,’ began Sirius in his gossip tone of voice. ‘James is going to invite Lily to visit over the summer. Meet his mum! And his dad, but it’ll be his mum who won’t leave her alone.’

‘Will you feel replaced?’ Remus asked, smirking.

‘So replaced. What if she fusses over how much Lily is eating instead of me?’ Sirius paused and put on a look of horror. ‘What if she wants Lily on her charades team?’

‘I did not know that you played charades with James’ parents.’

‘Oh, it’s quite an experience. See, you learnt something new about me tonight, must be a real date.’

‘Never said it wasn’t one.’

‘Good.’

‘Though I have to admit,’ Remus began, spurred on by the heady excitement of actually being there. ‘I mostly went for the dinner date option to avoid having to awkwardly confess anything. Thought asking someone on a date makes the assumption.’

‘Are you saying that all this effort-’ Sirius gestured at himself. ‘-was for nothing?’

‘Oh no,’ grinned Remus. ‘I very much appreciate the effort.’

Freed from the worry that he needed to make it seem like a proper date, Remus settled happily into discussing what would happen if Lily visited the Potter household. Their food came, endless small plates that Sirius kept shoving into Remus’ face once he had discovered that something was delicious. They battled over the last of the vine leaves (‘why would a two person menu not have even numbered portions?’ Sirius had complained whilst Remus ate it) and their waiter brought them over a complimentary baba ghanoush which Remus thought might be because they had so loudly praised the other dips whilst trying to get every last bit of them out of the bowls. Afterwards, they shared a plate of baklava whilst Remus started to worry that his apparently foolproof plan was nearly at an end and he hadn’t actually thought past the having a meal part. Luckily, Sirius continued to prove adept at mind reading.

‘Tradition dictates that I suggest we get a drink, or I make up an excuse that might be having a drink to invite you back to mine. Or yours. Though it would be weird if I invited you to your own room.’

‘Popular culture has made me believe these things.’

Remus had no need to hide from Sirius that his knowledge came from pop culture. He wanted Sirius to dictate what happened next. He’d done the courageous part, the part that James had suggested would be necessary for him to do, and now he needed guidance.

‘Fuck that, is what I say. We don’t need for alcohol to make us feel comfortable around each other. Skip the drink, come back to mine?’

Remus did not point out that their rooms were a few metres apart so it wasn’t as bold a statement as it sounded. He wanted it to be a bold statement. 

‘Definitely.’

 

\---

 

Some might’ve said that James was a little too invested in whether his best friends got together. Sirius had sent him a screenshot of Remus’ text earlier in the day and he had been somewhat surprised that Remus had acted so quickly and decisively. Later he’d stopped by to check on Sirius, who was taking a lot of effort to perfect how he looked considering that he had slept in the same bed as Remus and also had a tendency to walk around barely clothed, so Remus presumably had plenty of knowledge of how Sirius looked when asleep or hardly dressed. James had offered vague encouragement and left Sirius to it. 

He had gone to dinner with Peter early without telling Peter why. When Lily asked, he claimed it was because he didn’t want the information spread in case their date went badly. He didn’t say it was because he wasn’t sure if Peter might react weirdly. Peter was stressed with work and the future and didn’t like change, especially not the kind that might change their friendship group. His plan had only half worked because at dinner people had seemed surprised that Sirius and Remus weren’t with them and then James overheard somebody telling a friend that they’d seen Sirius looking ‘ridiculously hot’ on their way to the dining hall. Peter hadn’t asked, but he was probably wondering where they were and assumed James knew because James always knew what Sirius was doing, and vice versa. Maybe Peter had guessed, James thought, seeing as it wasn’t exactly a surprising turn of events.

He met Lily after dinner and they went to watch her friend in a play before going back to his room.

‘Do you think they’re back?’ Lily asked as they went up the stairs.

‘Thank god you asked, I was wondering if you’d think I was weird for wanting to know. I don’t know. I’ve heard nothing from Sirius.’

‘I bet Remus has forbidden him from texting you.’

‘Why would you say that?’

‘Because sometimes I consider forbidding you from texting him to share every detail you deem necessary.’

‘I don’t share that much,’ James protested, but he withered under Lily’s glare. ‘Okay, maybe quite a lot.’

There were no signs on their hallway as to whether the pair were back yet, so James unlocked his door and settled for waiting to see if he heard anything from Sirius. In the meantime, he and Lily got far too invested in playing an online game until it got too late to stay up. When he woke up, there was nothing on his phone.

‘He’s not texted,’ James said to Lily, who was only half awake.

‘You sound like his mum.’

‘You’ve heard about his mum, right?’

‘You sound like a much better version of his mum, then.’

James got up, showered, and made coffee using the kettle in his room.

‘I’m going over.’

‘I wouldn’t do that,’ she said with a warning tone. ‘Remember our bet.’

‘Yes, and I think I’ll be right, so it’s no problem.’

He walked over and pushed open Sirius’ door, which Sirius always forgot to lock. His room was dark, with light only coming in through a gap in the curtains. There was a sound of alarm and then a voice.

‘Don’t worry, it’s only James.’

‘And Lily,’ came a different voice from behind James. Lily’s voice. ‘Aha, I won.’

‘What’ve you won?’ asked Sirius, who had lifted up his head but not actually sat up. He’d lifted up his head because otherwise he couldn’t see past Remus, who was looking through the gloom with a faintly exasperated look.

‘Our bet,’ Lily explained. James went over to the nearby window and pulled one of the curtains open. With the extra light, it was much easier to see Sirius and Remus looking at them from Sirius’ bed, Remus with a sleepy glare and Sirius with a happy grin. Remus had pulled the duvet up, though it was still obvious that Sirius’ arm was around him.

‘Sirius, what is happening?’ Remus asked.

‘You should’ve expected this. James wanted to know how the evening went because I didn’t text him.’

‘Did you not text him just so that he’d walk in?’

‘Maybe.’ James and Lily laughed. ‘Didn’t know Lily would come too. What’s this bet, then?’

‘Oh, not much,’ James replied. ‘Just we bet on how fast you’d take things and, well, I went for the slower option.’

Both Sirius and Remus snorted with laughter.

‘Sorry, mate,’ said Sirius without a trace of being sorry. ‘But you probably deserve the loss for bursting in on us like that. It’s only me you’ve already seen naked.’

‘How do you live with them?’ Lily asked Remus.

‘It’s a trial,’ Remus answered, whilst James glared at him. ‘Now, could you two leave because I actually have a class soon and none of whatever is going on here constitutes an excuse for why I’m late.’ Sirius coughed. ‘No, not even you.’

That afternoon, James had barely had time to put his bag down after getting back to his room after a tutorial to find Sirius marching in.

‘Well?’ prompted James.

‘You spoke to him.’

‘How do you know?’

‘He told me, you idiot.’ 

James suddenly found that Sirius was hugging him.

‘I suppose that’s a “thank you”?’

‘As close to one as you’re getting seeing as you also bet on us with your girlfriend.’

‘You’d have done the same. Hope Remus didn’t mind this morning too much.’

Sirius laughed.

‘I pointed out that he knew I would’ve told you instantly anyway. Which he conceded. And accepted that really you and Lily only saw his shoulders which isn’t very shocking unless you’re a Victorian.’

‘He’ll have to get used to it.’

‘Or he’ll make me start locking my door.’

‘Never.’

 

\---

 

The Easter break was far less fun than the others Sirius had spent at James’ house because they spent most of the time doing work with their books and respective laptops strewn across the dining room table. Sirius suspected it was slightly more annoying for James because Sirius tended to speak aloud when he was doing language work or going over bits of classical texts. James did get payback by making Sirius go on long evening walks with him to make up for having to sit down all day. Sirius didn’t mind too much because walks were a perfect opportunity to chat shit after hours of work and occasionally they drank cans of alcohol as they walked for maximum recreation.

He and Remus Skyped every week; Remus asked why they’d never thought of doing that before and Sirius pointed out that previously Remus had never admitted that he wanted to see Sirius’ face as well as hear his wonderful updates. It had taken a couple of weeks after their date, right at the end of term, before they had decided that they were ‘properly doing this’ (as Sirius had phrased it), which mostly meant that James was allowed to say ‘your boyfriend’ when making comments about one to the other. Unlike James and Lily, a combination of timing and trying to keep a low and not too public profile meant they didn’t end up with much obvious gossip, though Sirius thought that when they went back more people might know.

Both Remus and Peter had their actual final exams coming up so returning to Oxford was less of their usual celebration and more of a quiet gathering in James’ room where Remus fell asleep sprawled across Sirius because he was so tired from revision. Peter’s panic had turned into a wild eyed assertion that he was fine when anybody asked, which Sirius supposed was healthier than some of the other coping methods he saw around college. Remus seemed closer to actual panic, though he mostly showed it by trying to revise so much that Sirius kept having to turn up and physically make him take a break. James and Sirius were far more casual, better at hiding their exam panic and without the impending end of undergraduate career to add stress.

The two of them, plus Lily who was also doing a four-year course, spent a lot of evenings sitting outside on the various lawns in college because they had perfected only doing their work during the day in a way that neither Peter, who tended to take naps and procrastinate, and Remus, who would look up irrelevant things just in case and lose a whole afternoon, could achieve. The other two joined when they weren’t either working or collapsed sleeping. Sirius loved these evenings, which had a kind of hazy easiness he couldn’t really define.

‘My parents are going on holiday for a week in August,’ James said on one of the evenings, stretched out across the grass with Lily sitting beside him and occasionally dropping blades of grass onto him. ‘They’re fine with people coming to stay then as long as they turn up before my parents leave so they can be suitably welcomed.’

He looked insinuatingly at Lily, who rolled her eyes.

‘You’ve already invited me and I said yes, all you’re doing is trying to make meeting your parents sound scary, when Sirius has already told me it won’t be.’

Sirius laughed.

‘James’ mum will probably tell you she likes you more than James,’ said Remus, who was sitting next to Sirius. ‘She’s told Sirius that more than once.’

‘It’s her way of making guests feel welcome,’ explained James. ‘Remus, what do you say? Empty house, our usual kind of wild times?’

Remus looked a bit awkward and Sirius immediately leapt in to cover for him having to answer.

‘James, what wild times? Once your mum offered me vodka in the afternoon, that’s about as wild as it gets. And I turned it down.’

He didn’t know what was up with Remus, but he didn’t want Remus to have to feel obliged to accept James’ invitation. Maybe it was some family thing, or they’d misremembered when the full moon was, or Remus didn’t want to spend time at James’ house now that circumstances had changed. Sirius couldn’t tell if he was somehow being insensitive or missing something important, so he resolved to get the subject far away from staying at James’.

‘So, the app’s being actually published soon?’

James started off on his long description of what the computer science students had told him and how he was getting cards printed with the app name and password on them. Remus was clearly barely listening and Sirius ended up zoning out, watching Remus instead and trying to work out what was wrong, other than the obvious finals stress. Unless it was just that and Sirius was being too paranoid. Their conversation deviated, as it often did, to questioning how Tom Riddle was still a tutor, but there hadn’t really been anything big for a while so there was little new to add. Sure, it was easier to see students agreeing with his views on social media, but it wasn’t like the internet wasn’t already a hotbed of hate, and few people had any delusions that there weren’t plenty of people with offensive views of some kind in the university.

Sirius waited a few days before asking Remus if something else was up, hoping to work out whether he was overreacting or under-reacting. Everybody was acting weird in different ways, after all. Remus seemed a little on edge and distancing himself more and more from not only Sirius, but James and Peter as well. Peter wasn’t a great yardstick, however, as he had a permanently worried expression and mostly just followed them to dinner like a sheep and returned to his room to, presumably, work or sleep. James had told Sirius that he thought Peter might be panicking because he had realised that these exams were entirely down to him and he wasn’t good with that pressure, because he’d started snapping ‘nobody can help, it’s all on me’ whenever James tried to ask how he was.

In the end, it was partly Remus who sparked off the conversation. He came into Sirius’ room one evening looking like he was in a daze. Sirius put down the book he was reading.

‘Remus, you okay?’

‘Tired,’ he mumbled, just standing there in the middle of the room.

‘You look like you need sleep.’

‘I just…’

‘Is something up?’ Sirius paused. ‘Something other than the crushing exams you’re revising for?’

‘They’re taking away my sense of perspective,’ admitted Remus slowly. ‘I can’t tell if everything is a terrible idea. You don’t need a werewolf boyfriend. Maybe I shouldn’t even be here. I’m just...so tired.’

‘First off,’ said Sirius, keeping a light tone. ‘That is exactly what I need and, conveniently, what I now have. And you absolutely should be here. Finals strip away your very belief in yourself, but you can keep going, you’re strong, far stronger than other people I know. You’re right, it’s all perspective. After finals, after sleep, it’ll be easier.’ 

‘Yeah.’

‘And as for tiredness, that can be helped.’ Sirius went over to his drawers and grabbed a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms. ‘Here, escape your room and its reminders of work for a night.’

‘I didn’t know you actually owned proper pyjamas,’ said Remus facetiously, a smile growing on his face.

‘Propriety requires me to own some just in case,’ replied Sirius. ‘Could be invited to a sleepover or something.’

‘Is that what we’re having?’

Sirius grinned. He could go with the ridiculous theme in the interest of cheering up Remus.

‘Yes. Luckily I own two pairs of pyjama bottoms. We can have a pillow fight if you’re lucky.’

They didn’t have a pillow fight. Instead, they changed into pyjamas, ate a bag of marshmallows that Sirius had forgotten he owned, and then when Remus looked too tired for anything else, Sirius told terrible ghost stories whilst absentmindedly stroking Remus’ hair. It was a strange way to spend an evening, but Sirius also knew that sometimes the only way to combat feeling terrible was to fight it with the reassuringly weird. In the morning he woke up with Remus’ face buried in his unusually clothed chest and the knowledge that if he reassured Remus that they definitely did want him at James’ house, Remus would accept that invitation for what would undoubtably be a far less wild summer than James claimed.

 

\---

 

The shell shock of exams being over lasted with Remus for a good few days before he was fully able to comprehend that they were done. The full moon had been less than a week before his intensive series of exams began and he had lost a day and a half of revision to sleeping on Sirius’ bed, waking up to be taken to dinner and to hold sleepy conversations with Sirius about the historical periods he had been revising before the moon. He hated to rely on anybody and had wished that he hadn’t needed to be looked after then or on any of the nights that Sirius had forced him to sleep, using his endless ability to talk to drown out Remus’ whirring brain and allow him to get some rest that wasn’t punctuated by suddenly getting up to check some fact or note down something. However, he had needed it. It made him realise how important it was to have people who knew about what he was, who could understand when he needed to sleep for a whole day but also wanted to escape his room where he’d been stuck all night.

Peter’s exams had finished just before Remus’ had and he had hibernated for two days before emerging looking slightly less stressed than he had before. Neither James nor Sirius’ were over yet, but they were both acting as if it was nothing, possibly in the face of their friends having breakdowns. Despite their cool facade, it wasn’t difficult to find them in each other’s rooms, notes spread everywhere, revising silently. Sometimes Remus wanted to tell all the people who thought that James and Sirius were the height of cool that they actually worked very hard to get away with being that clever and seeming less so. Somehow none of the other Classics students in the college thought to tell everybody that, despite his appearance, Sirius had done best out of them in their first year exams.

On the last night of term, the last night that Peter and Remus technically had there (though Remus, coming back next year pending his results, was a bit less emotional than Peter), they went to the Leaky Cauldron to mark the occasion. The app was published too, though that had been out of their hands so felt less momentous (James had gone out after his exams and left some of the cards about the app and its password in certain locations, though he said he would wait until the next year to leave more). Lily joined them too, hungover because she and her friends had celebrated the night before and she still hadn’t recovered.

‘It seems only yesterday we were moving in and wondering why Peter had brought half his kitchen and James’ mum was folding his towels for him,’ said Sirius, who was drinking the cocktails that Rosie kept inventing for the pub and Sirius claimed she was inventing for him. ‘And then we went to dinner and James met an unattainable girl with a taste for science pun clothing.’

Both James and Lily pulled a face at him, though neither seemed certain if they were being insulted or not.

‘You scared me a bit when we started,’ admitted Peter. Remus was sitting next to Sirius and couldn’t see his facial expression, but his laughter was difficult to miss.

‘That’s the second best compliment I’ve had since I started Oxford.’

‘What’s the first?’ asked Lily.

‘Remus telling me the effort I put into my appearance for our going out to dinner was worth it.’

Remus blushed and elbowed Sirius.

‘Don’t make it so soppy so early in the evening,’ he said.

Their conversation continued to be reminiscing and telling stories, with only the notable omission of anything referring to Remus being a werewolf because Lily was there, a fact Remus slightly regretted because James and Sirius making offhand werewolf jokes like they were mocking his height or his hair colour was one of the major reasons he was glad they had worked it out so long ago.

‘I still get emails from all the crappy gaming societies that Remus put my name down for at freshers’ fair,’ revealed Sirius later. By then they were all drinking Rosie’s cocktails, even Lily who had asked for whichever would stop her getting another hangover.

‘Haven’t you heard of clicking “unsubscribe”?’ asked Remus.

‘Maybe it was a gesture because it was Remus who signed you up,’ suggested Lily. 

James shook his head. 

‘If anything was a gesture it’s that bloody necklace.’

‘James, you’re ruining all my mystery,’ said Sirius loudly.

‘Sirius, you have no mystery, you two are holding hands under the table.’

‘I still have mystery,’ Sirius pouted. Remus didn’t question how James, sat on the other side of the table, knew about them holding hands, because he was used to assuming that James knew everything. And, through that, Lily, seeing as he himself knew a large amount about James and Lily’s relationship from Sirius. He would, soon, tell James that he could tell Lily about Remus and the whole werewolf thing. It would become weird that she didn’t know otherwise and Remus felt comfortable with her, particularly because she got along so well with Sirius ever since their chat in the pub months ago. Maybe next year, seeing as it would be different anyway, he thought.

They bought their final drinks and Peter started rambling about how he might try and find a job in or near Oxford that quickly became him listing every potential kind of job he might be able to do. Remus’ brain wanted to worry about his own future, about whether he’d get the results to get into his master’s and whether things would work out alright, but somehow another voice stopped him, one pointing out that after all his worries and panic, after barely believing he’d be able to go to Oxford, here he was on his last night as an undergraduate, sitting with his group of friends in a pub, trying to explain to his boyfriend that no, telling Peter he could become Indiana Jones wasn’t actually useful. He could hardly take it in.


	7. Fourth Year, Part One

‘I can’t believe your mum made you tidy your room for your girlfriend. What are you, twelve?’

Sirius sat watching James tidy his bedroom, finding it difficult not to make comments every now and then. Out of a deference to the Potters, Sirius’ own room - the guest room - was far tidier than his room in college ever was, so he had no need to tidy anything. Also, Remus had been before, but Lily hadn’t, and was getting the red carpet treatment. James had tried to argue that Lily often stuck pens in her hair for safekeeping and kept weird experiments on her windowsill and therefore didn’t care what his room looked like, but his mum had merely shaken her head and asked Sirius how on earth James had a girlfriend. Sirius had replied with ‘it’s a mystery to me’ and a smirk at James.

All the activity around Lily’s visit was making Sirius hope that it would stop James’ parents from upping Remus’ level of treatment from ‘one of James’ best friends’ to ‘oh you are so good for Sirius this is wonderful’. The Potters weren’t very good at knowing boundaries for enthusiasm. However, Lily, as the potential daughter-in-law that James had only been with for six months, was in a position that even Sirius accepted might need something close to James’ mum’s level of excitement. Her visit was a big deal. Not only that, but James’ parents were leaving to go on holiday the next day so they had to pack all their seeing Lily into the time before they left and a couple of days when they got back. The four of them - Peter was on holiday with his family and was coming later in the month for a few days - would mostly have the house to themselves.

James and Sirius made their usual trip up to the station in James’ little car, but Lily’s train was delayed by an hour. Sirius suggested he and Remus walk the half hour back to James’ house rather than wait; he didn’t think he could handle waiting around for an hour with an excited and impatient James. They left Remus’ bags in James’ car and started off.

‘You do actually know the way, right?’ Remus asked as they left the station car park.

‘Of course,’ said Sirius. ‘Through the village, across a few fields, it’s simple.’

Maybe Sirius was underestimating his description of the small town that James lived just outside of, but he wasn’t lying, he did know the way, or at least had walked it a good number of times with James because walking was an activity that Sirius liked doing, though it wasn’t really active enough for James. They made it back to the Potters’ house in forty minutes and with only one major detour. Remus had spent most of the walk laughing at Sirius for having grown up in a city and then thinking he was a master of the countryside because he had gone through some fields a few times. Sirius threatened to leave him in the fields, but Remus just pointed out that Sirius would never have the heart to do that and Sirius had to concede the point, instead insisting that they could hold hands if they wanted because the hedgerows probably weren’t homophobic. He thought it was a fair point.

‘Sorry guys, only me and Remus, your not-so-fair son and the distinctly ginger Lily are delayed,’ Sirius announced when they got inside James’ house. James’ mum rushed out to greet Remus regardless.

‘Remus, how are you? James says your degree is over and you’re hoping to do a master’s next year?’

‘He’s right, I am. And I’m fine, thank you, are you?’ replied Remus awkwardly.

‘I’m lovely thanks dear. Do you two want tea? And maybe you can give me some more information about Lily, I’m sure James and Sirius have been leaving things out.’

Sirius gave Remus what he hoped was a reassuring nudge of ‘sorry she has already dragged you into sharing gossip’.

‘Tea and gossip, two of my favourites,’ said Sirius. ‘Remus takes sugar but don’t let it put you off him.’

When he heard James and Lily come through the door, Sirius called out, ‘James, we’re in here drinking tea with your mum and telling her how awful you are.’ 

Sirius offered to make tea for James and Lily and dragged Remus with him to the kitchen to make sure that Remus was alright, claiming that he needed help carrying both mugs.

‘Sirius, stop fussing, I can handle friendly parents.’

‘Just don’t want you to be uncomfortable.’

‘Listen, I know you’re not good at dealing with actually nice parents in a casual way, but honestly, I am okay.’ Remus grabbed teabags out of the cupboard and put them in the mugs Sirius had set out. ‘She’s not even said anything about us.’

‘I know. It’s weird, I thought she would. One of the first things James’ dad said when we came back for Easter was “I hear you’re both off the market then”. But that was months ago, maybe it’s old news now.’

The kettle clicked.

‘We are old news. Boring news. Mundane.’

Sirius leant over and kissed Remus quickly, before turning to pour the water in the tea.

‘So boring.’

Back in James’ living room, Lily was holding up well, telling James’ mum about the chemistry labs whilst James looked between them like he was watching tennis. Sirius sat on the floor and was soon joined by Artemis, who leapt to sit on his lap like it was a real treat. Remus sat beside him and stroked Artemis’ head, getting occasionally licked. Eventually, James’ mum announced she was going to start making dinner and, refusing Sirius’ offer to help with a look at Remus that confirmed to him that she actually was interested in their relationship, left the room.

‘Lily! How are you?’ Sirius said loudly.

‘Train from hell, otherwise good.’

‘Want to meet my dog?’

Lily, who’d been told the story of Artemis’ purchase and subsequent departure months ago, nodded. Sirius lifted Artemis up and passed her over to Lily on the sofa. They all stayed sitting there until dinner, occasionally joined by James’ mum in between cooking and James’ dad once he got home. Still neither of them said anything about Sirius and Remus, though James’ mum had already managed to get in a good few ‘in front of your girlfriend’ disparaging comments in James’ direction. Over dinner Lily and Remus were asked a series of questions like it was a weird chat show, though neither seemed to mind. Sirius realised that though Remus had visited James’ family twice before, usually when it was them and Peter they didn’t eat dinner with James’ parents or spend much time in their company, so it was probably long overdue.

After dinner they escaped outside and sat on the grass drinking a selection of bottles of flavoured cider that James and Sirius had raided from the supermarket.

‘Is “cloudberry” a real berry?’ asked Remus, looking at his bottle.

‘I’m sure it was on Neopets,’ replied Lily.

‘Stop questioning our drink choices,’ James said, glaring at them. ‘We worked hard to pick all the best ones that were on offer.’

‘And we were shopping with his mum because she wanted help so we had limited time to choose before she asked one of us to grab a huge bag of potatoes,’ Sirius added.

‘The domestic adventures of James Potter and Sirius Black,’ said Lily. ‘What a thrilling escapade.’

‘James,’ Sirius said, flicking a bottle cap at him. ‘Did you say something to your mum? Only she’s said nothing about me and Remus all day. Not even before you got here.’

James looked slightly abashed.

‘I might’ve said something about not being all in your face.’

Sirius was about to say that he was sure that Remus could take it when he realised something.

‘You were worried I’d panic, weren’t you?’

Out of the corner of his eye, Sirius could see that both Lily and Remus were trying to look like they weren’t watching the conversation intently.

‘Well, yes. But not how you think. Not because of commitment or whatever. But at Oxford you’re pretty low key, more low key than you do anything else. And your experience of families and your love life is entirely having insults hurled at you about your sexuality whilst you walk out the door, so I felt it might be overwhelming to suddenly get teased by someone who isn’t me.’

Sirius wasn’t sure how to respond.

‘I...cheers, I guess.’

‘I wish I could preserve the essence of this moment to show people that I didn’t knock my head before agreeing to go out with James,’ said Lily.

‘Oh, but I’ve seen plenty of his nice side and I still think you did,’ responded Sirius.

‘Why did you go out with him, then?’ asked Remus, with a glint in his eye. It was a conversation the two of them had quite a few times: not why she’d picked James, who they were obviously on the side of, but why she had finally decided to, what had swayed it.

Lily considered for a moment.

‘Well, he didn’t seem to just be constantly trying to talk at me anymore. And from what I’d seen of you guys, he seemed to be a pretty decent friend. So I thought, well, he’s pretty hot, he’s maybe not as annoying as he seems, and it can’t hurt to see how it goes.’

‘And then I was so charming over dinner that she couldn’t resist,’ James said.

‘And then you were funny and so awkwardly trying to not look like an idiot that I knew that I was right and there was more to you. Plus you understood my science jokes.’

‘Even I get some of your science jokes,’ Sirius pointed out. ‘And I spent much of GCSE Chemistry trying to spark revolution amongst my fellow students.’

‘Fine, maybe I was looking for excuses, then.’

‘Like how I decided Sirius’ constant stories about trying to be kicked out of posh schools are actually endearing pretty early on,’ said Remus. 

Sirius pulled a face at him before asking, ‘just how early on?’, to which James gave him a look.

‘Don’t go there. Tonight is not turning into how long did you two dance around each other before-’

‘-shagging after having one “date”-’ Sirius did air quotes to get across that it was an excuse. ‘-and making you lose a bet.’

‘Why won’t you let the bet go?’

‘I just want you to be aware of the moral consequences of betting on your friends.’

‘There haven’t been any.’

‘Yet.’

 

\---

 

After a few days, Remus got used to the strange freedom of having the run of James’ house. Sirius had decided he was cooking dinner every day, which gave opportunity for Lily to marvel that she hadn’t seen that coming and Remus to spend a lot of time trying to distract Sirius from cooking, though often that turned into him being roped into helping out. During the day they lounged around, went for walks after James had ascertained that none of them would run with him, and once were convinced into going to the local tennis court, where Sirius had ripped his jeans stretching to hit the ball and then Lily and Remus managed to beat James and a whining Sirius.

He was so used to the freedom that when one morning Sirius suddenly jumped out of bed, hastily pulled on a pair of boxers and nothing else and rushed off because he ‘needed to tell James something’, Remus just put on some pyjama bottoms and followed him down the hall to James’ room. What Sirius had needed to tell James turned out to be about a dream he’d had where James was a famous footballer but only because he’d shaved his head and become a right wing sympathiser. He was already starting to tell James when Remus walked in. James was drinking coffee wearing a running t-shirt and shorts that suggested he’d been up for a while and Lily was wearing a pair of James’ pyjamas and eating cereal sitting on his bed, suggesting she had not joined her boyfriend on the run.

It took James’ second of distraction from Sirius’ story for Remus to realise that his friends - not including Sirius - weren’t used to seeing him anything other than fully clothed and that at that moment, the scar across his chest was very visible, as was the tattoo above it. James masked his surprise quickly, returning to Sirius’ dream.

‘I can’t believe your subconscious thinks I would ever agree with right wing views on anything. I’m offended.’

‘I didn’t choose it to happen. Maybe it was a nightmare.’

Remus stepped closer to Sirius, feeling like he had cover seeing as Sirius was wearing a lot less than him. He looked over at Lily, wondering if she’d see the scar and wonder what it was, before noticing that she was actually too busy looking at Sirius’ tattoos.

‘Sirius, why is my girlfriend staring at you?’

Clearly James had noticed that too.

‘My alluring physi-’ Sirius began, in true Sirius style.

‘Why are you wearing a weird wolf necklace?’ Lily asked.

Sirius’ hand jumped to his neck. Remus knew he should panic, but he wanted to laugh: it was not the detail in the scene he thought would be suspicious. Also, it was hilarious that Sirius insisted on wearing it so much, with the cheap cord likely to break any day, and that Lily had been the first person to question why he so obsessively wore a necklace aimed at children in museum gift shops. Sirius didn’t respond and James looked at Remus and tilted his head questioningly. Remus nodded, smiling so that James knew it was okay.

‘Lily, we’ve got to tell you something,’ said James, turning to face her. ‘And you can’t ever tell anyone, no matter what happens between us, no matter how much you want to. Promise?’

Lily looked startled.

‘I promise.’

James looked over at Remus and let him take over, at least to start off with. It was difficult, the words hard to find, as he hadn’t told the others because of James and Sirius’ research. He explained the specialists and the clinic he still had to go to every year and how everything was hushed up through the expectation that the condition was just another monster story. Remus forgot that he was shirtless and standing in James’ bedroom. He had a horrible story to tell. Partway through him speaking, Sirius took his hand, entwining their fingers together in support. Once Remus was done, James and Sirius explained how they’d worked it out in first year and how they’d confronted him, but only to tell him that they knew and it was alright. And then, finally, Sirius explained how he’d got the necklace.

‘So,’ said Lily once they were done. ‘He gave you a wolf necklace and you didn’t think that was symbolic of anything, but then you happened to work out he’s a werewolf.’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Also,’ Lily paused and Remus held his breath, wondering what she’d say, though she was still looking at Sirius. ‘Why do act like you’re so cool but you have a tattoo in ancient Greek?’

She pointed at his chest, where there was a line from the Iliad sitting clear as day.

‘That’s not the only one,’ said Remus before Sirius could answer. Lily laughed and obviously tried to look for more.

‘You can’t say anything,’ said James, looking at Remus. ‘Secret star tattoo that I only knew about because Sirius told me years ago.’

‘What?’

‘It was second year,’ said Sirius. ‘James got super drunk, we had to stop him pestering Lily, danced to Bowie in my room, I got a glimpse of the tattoo when you took your jumper off.’

‘I vaguely remember. We’d been drinking too. So you saw…’ Remus trailed off and nodded down at his chest.

‘Yeah.’

‘I think what you should be focusing on,’ said James. ‘Is that he was staring at your chest two years ago yet said nothing about how he felt.’

‘Are you calling me a creep?’ asked Sirius.

‘I’m calling you an idiot who told me you were in love with somebody then proceeded to do literally nothing about it for over a year until I had a word with that somebody and he took the decisive action.’

Lily gasped. Remus took a moment for his brain to catch up.

‘You never told me that he said he was in love with me,’ he exclaimed. ‘You didn’t use those words.’

‘I’m sorry if I thought it might be more pressure if I quoted Sirius exactly rather than imply the same.’

‘Excuse me guys, I thought we were revealing Remus’ secret, not dissecting things I said a year and a half ago.’

Remus turned to look straight at Sirius.

‘You told him a year and a half ago that you were in love with me?’

‘Yes.’

‘And that’s still true?’

‘Of course.’

Remus flung his arms around Sirius’ neck.

‘You’re an idiot.’

‘Why does everyone call me an idiot?’ said Sirius, voice muffled against Remus. ‘I have a tattoo from Homer, I’m not an idiot.’

‘Pretentious, though,’ said Lily. 

The revelations over with, they split apart to get dressed and then spent the rest of the morning drinking hot drinks sprawled around the living room. Remus found himself having to explain that yes, it had actually been quite easy to get a tattoo above a werewolf bite scar because funnily enough the tattoo artist didn’t immediately assume that was what it was, and had perfectly accepted his story about a dog attack. That prompted Sirius to start telling tattoo stories until it became apparent he’d been getting more in the holidays between Oxford terms until he was cut off and no longer had the expendable income.

‘Who wants to experience one of mine and Sirius’ infamous pool tournaments?’ James declared whilst they ate lunch. Remus agreed mostly because he usually only got texted summaries of them and, from what he’d gathered, Sirius turned into the cocky loudmouth a lot of people thought he was when they played pool. He wanted to see that. Before he could, however, he had to spend half the afternoon watching Sirius make a curry whilst trying not to make too much of a mess across the Potters’ kitchen. After dinner, James and Sirius changed into what they called their ‘pool outfits’ (vest tops and jeans, which made Lily ask if they usually played pool or had a homoerotic tension tournament) and they all trouped into the garage where the pool table was, along with a dart board that Remus was glad nobody had suggested.

Sirius put on music and he and Lily danced around whilst James set up the table and grabbed beers out of a box that was conveniently also kept in the garage. They were slightly warm, but Remus felt that it added to the weird atmosphere of playing pool in James’ garage whilst Sirius and Lily both pretended to be Robert Plant. James drew up an overly complicated bracket system and Sirius called him a nerd. They played one another when James told them to and drank beer and argued about music when they weren’t. It only took one can and a couple of games before Sirius was strutting around twirling the pool cue and winking at Remus every five minutes, whether it was relevant or not. Remus felt that this was probably proof that it was lucky that Sirius didn’t like any sports or he might’ve been insufferable.

‘How’s it going?’ asked James once they were deep into the tournament. Sirius and Lily were playing, which had devolved into them mainly trash talking each other and spending ages bending over the table and claiming to be lining up the perfect shot.

‘Well, it’s enlightening to finally see one of these from the inside,’ replied Remus.

‘It doesn’t bring out the best in Sirius,’ James admitted.

‘On the contrary, he looks great playing pool. Lily and I were discussing it when you two were playing earlier.’

James shook his head, then raised his can and gestured at Remus.

‘I never gave you the speech. I forgot.’

‘What speech?’

‘The “you upset my best friend, you die” speech. The protective one. You know how it goes.’

‘I’m your friend too,’ Remus pointed out, but the alcohol also made him believe James fully.

‘Yes, but he’s Sirius. And now you know he’s been in love with you forever, you better know that if you mess lightly with his heart, I will come after you.’

‘I wasn’t planning on it.’

‘I really will.’

Remus looked over at Sirius, who was leaning against the pool table next to Lily trying to put her off by singing along to ‘Rock The Casbah’ as loudly as possible, and knew that he should be safe from James’ threat. He also thought that Lily would probably be safe from whatever Sirius had likely said to her, seeing as she had found out that one of her boyfriend’s friends was a werewolf that morning and was now happily playing in a strange pool tournament with him in a gloomy garage in the countryside. It had been a weird day.

 

\---

 

For his final ‘start of a new year at Oxford’, James played I-Spy with Sirius on the car journey like they were five year olds. It was unspoken that they were playing it because the day would be a weird one. Only the two of them would be moving into rooms next to each other like usual. Remus had turned up a few days previously as he had postgraduate induction activities and had sent them photos of his room in a postgrad building with thinly veiled regret that they wouldn’t be near him. Peter, meanwhile, was living in a shared house further out of the city centre and had moved in weeks ago. They’d heard little from him since he had. James resolved to try and get an invitation there to see what was up.

Peter’s visit over the summer had seemed fine. It had dragged James and Sirius out of their moping because Lily and Remus were gone and the three of them had film marathons and played dare games (until they’d had to dramatically stop because Sirius fell out of a tree and insisted all of him was sprained). Peter had told them about his plans to move in with a bunch of other students who’d recently graduated and how he’d lined up a job at a local café so he could afford rent and food until he could find a better job. Relieved that he wouldn’t be miles away, James had suggested they have regular pub trips and sang the praises of the area Peter would be living in, in case he was jealous of James and Sirius still living in college comfort where their bathroom was cleaned by somebody else. Peter had left with a cheery expression and had continued to give updates in their group message until he moved in.

Maybe Peter was busy, James reasoned, but it didn’t stop him feeling that something was wrong. Nevertheless, he was excited to have a new room and to get back to Oxford life and Lily. His and Sirius’ new rooms were round the corner and up a few stairs from Lily’s, a fact he discovered as he and Sirius came along with their newly collected keys to see Lily and her family in the doorway of her room. Her parents were smiling, her dad also red-headed and her mum not, and the girl who James assumed was her younger sister Petunia was scowling. James audibly yelped, but it was too late. He tried to hurriedly flatten his hair whilst Lily made introductions, which Sirius later assured him made it look much worse.

‘The famous James Potter,’ said Lily’s mum.

‘That’s me,’ he replied, feeling Sirius kick his foot to tell him to stop sounding so awkward.

‘And you’re Sirius,’ she continued. As expected, Sirius was far better at responding than him.

‘Lovely to meet you. Was Lily’s love of terrible puns something she got from you?’

Lily’s parents both laughed. James wondered if he could telepathically get Sirius to find an excuse for them to leave the corridor.

‘We brought her up with classic sitcoms, we can only assume she learnt it from them,’ her dad said.

‘Oh, the best way to grow up,’ said Sirius, who had not been brought up with any comedy or, indeed, drama on TV. James knew that his parents disliked television and everything Sirius had seen was in some kind of act of rebellion, making it a strangely patchy knowledge. ‘Anyway, we’d really better be getting these heavy bags down and sorting out the rest before James’ parents think we don’t want our stuff.’

They said their goodbyes and James found himself promising to meet them properly soon, then set off for their own rooms. Once there, they stepped inside James’ room, shut the door, and Sirius burst out laughing.

‘Oh my god,’ he said after a minute to compose himself. ‘Impromptu meet the parents, that was amazing.’

‘Well, not all of us were brought up with impeccable formal manners and a likable charm.’

‘I wasn’t brought up with the charm, that’s natural.’

‘It’s a shame Remus’ parents don’t know about you and him or I’d insist to be there when they meet you.’

‘Could be worse, he might’ve had to meet mine.’

Sirius laughed bitterly. James wasn’t sure he could handle that level of barely humour, though he knew it kept Sirius sane.

‘Do you think we can find a back staircase to get the rest of our stuff up here so I don’t have to see Lily’s parents every time?’

‘The things I do to help you avoid social awkwardness.’

They got the rest of their possessions up to their new rooms without further event, though James had barely started unpacking when Lily turned up to also laugh at him.

‘Thank god for Sirius or they’d be thinking people at Oxford aren’t nearly as articulate as they’d been led to expect.’

‘It was just a surprise, that’s all.’

‘On the plus side, Petunia stopped sulking that they’d roped her into coming along because she found it funny to see my boyfriend looking gormless.’

‘I should be thanked then. Are people going to the Leaky Cauldron tonight?’

‘I think so. Meet you guys at dinner?’

‘As long as your parents aren’t there.’

James unpacked and learnt the quirks of his new room, mostly that the wardrobe doors didn’t shut properly so constantly looked like something was trying to peek out of them. Music was playing loudly in Sirius’ room next door, but that didn’t stop James hearing Remus knocking on Sirius’ door, apparent from how loudly Sirius had exclaimed when he opened the door. James wished that anybody who thought Sirius was cool and good at talking to people had seen him react to Remus just appearing somewhere. James had just learnt that one of his plug sockets didn’t work when Sirius walked in, Remus right on his heels.

‘Your wardrobe’s broken,’ said Sirius.

‘I know.’ James looked at Remus. ‘How’s your room?’

‘Nice. It has a small sofa which is very luxurious, I’ve spent two days just reclining on it.’

‘You pesky graduate students. I have a broken wardrobe and plug.’

‘Any hot college gossip since you’ve been back?’ Sirius asked, sitting down on James’ desk chair.

‘Mostly just Riddle stuff,’ replied Remus. ‘Those new to Oxford were asking about him so all the new postgrads ended up on his blog. It’s still “Reclaim Oxford”. He’s been doing guest posts from disgruntled students and ex-students, mostly about political correctness and slipping university standards.’

‘Oh, good. So glad he’s not fallen into a hole and died yet.’

‘I suppose he’s trying to indoctrinate a new band of freshers this year as well,’ said James.

‘If they start patrolling the city I’m hiring you as my bodyguard, okay?’ Sirius said, then seemed to think. ‘Actually, no, I’m hiring you as Remus’ bodyguard, I’ll have to take my chances.’

James didn’t laugh. Remus looked like he wanted to say something, but kept silent. The topic of Tom Riddle was dropped, but it returned again at dinner that night, with everybody talking about the fact he’d made a new post calling for his supporters to start voicing their concerns further than on his blog. It seemed that his inaction was starting to become action of some kind. That was if anybody listened to his request, but his blog seemed to have quite a following so it was likely. That night at the pub they sat with some of the most politically minded people they knew and discussed whether they could form something to combat him, resolving to go away and think about it seeing as they didn’t know what might happen yet.

Over the next few days it became apparent that people were taking the blog seriously. There were two different protests - only small ones, but a start - that were claiming to be against the political correctness that was ruining the university and the country. Mostly, from what James had heard, they were people gathering together to shout offensive things and argue about freedom of speech. Not so much a protest as some bigots getting together to fuel their anger.

Lily used word of mouth through her friends and people they knew around college to gather people to the Leaky Cauldron, mostly those who usually ended up there talking politics amongst other things, so that they could talk about the threat. James, Sirius, and Remus sat near her though none of them had prepared things to say like she had. She and her friend Alice started off, addressing the group of about fifteen people to summarise what they knew so far. Alice did computer science and talked about Riddle’s anonymity and his position as a professor of philosophy.

‘The problem is,’ she concluded. ‘The university won’t do anything about him because there’s no proof, it’s just that it’s an open secret amongst students that it’s his blog. And so far nobody has been caught doing anything wrong in the name of the blog. There’s nothing official we can do.’

From there the conversation widened, with Benjy talking about his experience campaigning things in the university and how difficult it was to enact change when you were fighting people with elements of the system on their side.

‘Unless Riddle can be caught doing something concrete that violates university rules, there’s no hope of stopping him.’

‘But surely we can do something to stop people listening to him?’ said Lily. ‘Or to try and counteract their ridiculous protests?’

‘That we can do. Maybe something not specifically claiming to target them, but something along the lines of acting for a safer city for everybody, particularly targeting hate speech and prejudice.’

Further ideas and details were bounced around until it was agreed that they would, for now, form a kind of unofficial action group against hate speech in the university and city, with people like Benjy using their friends and contacts to get wider support. Alice suggested an anonymous blog of their own, not to directly converse with Riddle but to get out the message of acceptance and safety, though people pointed out that they’d probably be inundated with trolls if they did. Alastor, a slightly intimidating postgrad student who was a friend of Benjy’s, talked quite alarmingly how they’d have to watch what they said using online channels in case they were being watched. James had never been part of a discussion quite like it, but he was glad he was there.

In the week after their pub meeting, James tried to find time to do things to help, even if it was just letting Lily bounce ideas off him and trying to keep informed about things happening in Oxford. The trouble was that he had so much work to do and so did everybody else, so there was a lot to balance. After the original gatherings, Riddle’s supporters seemed to mostly take their fights online, with university pages and Facebook groups suddenly inundated with hate and people just claiming to be ‘showing the other side of the argument’. People started removing any mention of Oxford from their Twitter accounts as they would be targeted just for that if they showed any sign of things disliked by the attackers. If nothing else, Riddle was succeeding with a culture of fear.

 

\---

 

Their eight-week term was over halfway through before they ended up seeing Peter. Remus had plenty of excuses, mostly to do with starting a master’s degree, and knew that the other two did too, but really the lateness was due to Peter himself, who was reticent to set a day and time that he would be free. Eventually, James picked an evening that Peter hadn’t said he would be busy on and told him that they’d be in a certain pub between their college and where Peter lived from eight if he wanted to join.

Remus wasn’t sure if Peter would turn up. They were all slightly on edge, not sure if something was properly wrong with him or if he was simply busy and had other things to do. Sirius, not usually the best at dealing with panicking Peter anyway, had snapped on the way there ‘if he doesn’t want to see us any more, he should just say’, to which James had hushed him and not replied. James went to get the drinks whilst Remus and Sirius grabbed a table. They sat opposite each other and Remus almost immediately had to put his feet on top of Sirius’ to stop him incessantly tapping them. His restlessness came out badly when he was under pressure, Remus knew, and he planned to suggest Sirius went for a smoke if Peter didn’t turn up after a while.

Peter was only five minutes late, looking a little rushed and not as excited to see them as they were to see him, or that was how it felt to Remus. James jumped up and hugged him, never Peter’s particular thing, and offered him a drink.

‘It’s alright, I’ll get it,’ replied Peter. ‘Not a poor student any more.’

‘At least he came,’ muttered Sirius under his breath. Remus glared at him, but agreed internally.

‘How’s it going?’ James asked once Peter was back, pint in hand.

‘Not bad. We got a good deal with the house, everybody else Dom and Adam know have had problems with their landlords and stuff, but ours seems pretty chill.’

‘What’s it like?’

‘Just on some street, like a terrace, with five bedrooms and a kitchen and a living room where we’ve got a PS4 hooked up to the TV that Miranda brought with her. Standard kind of place. Bit of mould but nothing terrible.’

Remus hadn’t seen Peter over the summer and didn’t know if James and Sirius already knew about Peter’s flatmates. When they’d filled him in on the major Peter details, it was mostly the vague basics. He recognised the names Dom and Adam, thought they might’ve been on Peter’s course, but he wasn’t sure about Miranda.

‘How’s the cafe?’ Remus asked. Peter shrugged.

‘It’s fine. Nothing exciting. Sometimes the girls come in to drink coffee and laugh at me having to make it, but mostly it’s just old people and mums and that.’

‘Sounds okay.’

‘It gives me money. Been going out with the others in evenings, going to places that they know. Ellie works in a pub so we go there sometimes if she’s got a shift. Play a lot of games otherwise.’

Peter didn’t elaborate further on his current life, but neither did he ask them anything. James started talking about the Riddle stuff, telling Peter about the posters advertising the blog and the feeble chanting his supporters did in the centre of town then ran off at any sign of trouble. Remus tried to save James from monologuing by adding his own comments. They moved onto the safer topic of college gossip and what had happened to other people who’d finished their degrees according to word of mouth or the internet. Remus listed the history students he knew about - Mary doing an internship, Jamal working in a museum, some others doing postgrad things around the country - and then ran out of gossip that wasn’t the frequent realisations by people that he and Sirius were together.

Having not in any way announced their relationship and continually trying to not be too obvious in public meant that a lot of people in the college either found out from small gestures they happened to notice or from somebody else. Lily’s friends knew because one of them had actually just asked her what was going on between them, but the information hadn’t spread by the end of the previous year so people who hadn’t left kept finding out. Adding to that Remus’ fellow graduate historians and other grad students he met and it was an at least weekly occurrence to have somebody go ‘is Sirius Black your boyfriend?’ or something else that occasionally sounded a bit less secondary school. His least favourite response was the ‘oh, I didn’t know you were gay’ with the last word said either louder or quieter than the rest. He supposed he might have it worse though; Sirius got looks of disbelief that he was in a relationship and wasn’t some wild playboy.

Remus was lost thinking about how he had somehow turned into ongoing minor gossip and hadn’t really been listening to James’ tales of what the football team were up to now, which at least Peter didn’t seem actively bored by. He jumped when Sirius spoke though, as Sirius had barely said two words so far.

‘Just nipping out for a smoke,’ he said, starting to stand up. Remus quickly moved his feet from where they were still on top of Sirius’ and made a quick decision.

‘I’ll keep you company,’ he offered, standing up too.

Outside, Sirius lit his cigarette and then looked right at Remus.

‘Well, this is going well.’

‘It could be worse,’ Remus protested without much force.

‘How? Suppose he could’ve said he’s writing for Riddle’s blog or something. Not that Peter would dare do something as outspoken as that.’

‘It must be weird for him, with us all still living in college like nothing has changed.’

‘He wouldn’t know, he’s not asked about us at all. For all he knows James and Lily are broken up and you’ve taken up line dancing.’

‘It’s obvious that they’ve not, James posts about her on Instagram every other day. Photos of mugs of tea she made him.’

To Remus’ surprise, Sirius didn’t argue back. Instead, he grinned.

‘You didn’t mention the line dancing, do you have a secret I’ve accidentally discovered?’

‘I would take up a better kind of dancing if I was.’

Sirius paused for a moment, staring into the distance. Remus shivered and wished he’d worn his coat.

‘Can we go out dancing?’

Remus laughed.

‘I thought you were going to say something profound. What sort of dancing?’

‘Morris dancing.’

‘...you’re joking.’

‘Obviously. Just a club. Well, a gay club. No James, I’ll make sure you don’t wear a brown jumper. If Lily’s nice maybe we’ll invite her and some of her friends.’

‘Okay. If we go as part of a group.’

‘I’ll speak to Lily.’

Remus felt that his task of trying to cheer Sirius up was at least working until they got back into the pub. When they got inside, James and Peter were talking about recent TV shows and films with more ease than the previous conversation. They all passed half an hour debating what was the best current sitcom and whether any of James’ favourite sci-fi shows could ever be matched. It was clear that none of them wanted to commit to a second drink, however, so eventually the conversation petered out into people looking at their phones as if surprised by the time.

‘Best be going, I said I might catch the others at Ellie’s pub,’ Peter said, trying not to catch their eyes. They said goodbyes and then Peter left before the others had even put their jackets on.

‘Back to my room to dissect what the hell is going on?’ suggested James.

‘Can’t we go to Remus’ and sit on his fancy postgrad sofa?’ Sirius asked.

‘You already sit on it every time you’re in my room.’

‘But not all the time I’m in your room,’ smirked Sirius.

Remus pretended to sigh.

‘Fine, let’s go to mine. Though if you’re annoying undergrads I’ll kick you out.’

‘No you won’t,’ said Sirius. Remus said nothing, but he knew that Sirius was right.

 

\---

 

Lily had far too much to get done. Academic work, a PhD application, trying to help coordinate what they were doing against Riddle, and occasionally watching her boyfriend play football because he looked so happy to see her standing there on a field when she should have been in bed. Regardless, when Sirius asked if she wanted to gather her best non-straight friends for a night of having fun and making Remus dance, she couldn’t say no. She sent a few texts, all pointing out that they’d get to go out in the presence of Sirius Black and it shouldn’t be missed, and offered her room as somewhere to congregate before they left. Nobody declined the offer. 

By Saturday night, she’d done as much of her work as was necessary in case of a serious hangover the next day and had been interrupted only twice by Sirius asking what she was going to wear and if she had any glitter he could borrow. To the latter she had just gestured at herself, in her usual uniform of hoodie and jeans, and said that probably one of her friends would bring some. Marlene and Dorcas turned up early with a cheap bottle of vodka and appreciation for the outfit that Sirius had previously approved: shorts, a vest top, and an oversized checked shirt that she knew people would think was James’ and was definitely hers. Cary, Jeremy, and Fin arrived with a handful of pots of body glitter, responding valiantly to Lily’s call for it. A few more people arrived and then they were only waiting for Sirius and Remus, who she assumed were late because Sirius was trying to make Remus dress like he was actually going out.

When they walked in, it was clear to Lily that they’d started drinking already, mostly because Remus hadn’t looked particularly embarrassed when everybody in the room turned to look at them. She hadn’t told them that they were essentially the guests of honour at predrinks, in the same way that she never really explained how people saw the three of them - previously four - as some kind of mysterious circle, somehow unknowable and therefore cooler than they really were. Though tonight they were going to attract attention anyway, with Remus wearing what she thought was one of Sirius’ t-shirts instead of a hoodie and his hair ruffled up and styled, and Sirius having gone for incredibly ripped jeans and a tight vest. Remus had shed his usual thoughtful look for excitement, though Sirius was trying hard (and failing) to look barely impressed.

‘Lily,’ called out Sirius, adding syllables to her name. ‘We’re here and I didn’t let James even come and peek in so you can thank me later.’

She walked over and grinned.

‘Don’t you two look smart.’

‘I’ve been assured this is a good look,’ said Remus.

‘That might be why we’re late,’ added Sirius.

‘And I thought something terrible had happened to you,’ Lily said, deadpan. ‘I assume you recognise everybody. There’s glitter, there’s vodka that tastes terrible, and I see you’ve brought-’ She looked at the bottle in Sirius’ hand. ‘-Zubrowka.’

‘Bison grass vodka is a definite few steps up from the value stuff. Best with apple juice, but I don’t stretch to mixers.’

Lily nodded, surprised as she was used to seeing Sirius drinking cheap cider and whatever James offered. The bottle was already open when Sirius passed it to Lily. She opted for grabbing a glass to pour some into and fake toasting Sirius before she drank. It did taste good, though unusual. She turned to talk to Fin and when she looked back, saw that Sirius was trying to write something on Remus’ arm in glitter. Marlene and Dorcas were egging him on. After they’d all had a suitable amount of either vodka to want to venture out in the bracing November night, they set off for the club, moaning about how far away it was from college. Lily had had just enough alcohol that her plan to try and observe Remus and Sirius turned into her walking beside them and failing to pretend she wasn’t there to listen to them.

‘Lily, you’re turning into James,’ Remus said after a few minutes.

‘No I’m not.’

‘Stop giving us the “I’m so happy for them” look then. It’s weird on him.’

‘Is he always this assertive when drunk?’ she asked Sirius, who laughed.

‘It varies. What you can guarantee from drunk Remus is that he stops thinking about what he’s saying before saying it.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I can see your mischievous look, you know.’

That didn’t stop Lily. In the queue getting into the club, she pulled Remus aside and asked him what he was getting Sirius for Christmas. 

‘A tattoo,’ he responded, then suddenly looked around to check that Sirius wasn’t within earshot. ‘He’s not had a new one in ages.’

Lily wanted to ask more questions and find out everything that Remus usually kept guarded, but unfortunately Sirius seemed to have realised what she was doing and stepped around the people between them.

‘Is she harassing you?’

‘Just asking me about your Christmas present.’

Sirius rolled his eyes.

‘At least drunk Lily can’t think of any good interrogation topics.’

They went inside and Lily lost them, swept up with her friends towards the bar where they brought a round of brightly coloured shots before heading off to dance. It wasn’t long before she saw Sirius and Remus again, pushing their way over from the direction of the bar. Sirius handed her a shot and shouted in her ear ‘that’s actually from James, he gave me the money to buy the three of us drinks’. She tried to get her phone out to text James and thank him, but wasn’t sure if that’s what she had typed. Somebody, possibly Dorcas, started taking photos of them all, so Lily tried to get in as many as she could. Suddenly, the music changed, and she knew it. She leapt over to Sirius.

‘Did you request this?’ she shouted in his ear as Bowie’s ‘Let’s Dance’ played.

‘Requested, tried to bribe, did a bit of flirting,’ Sirius replied. ‘Now, do what he says.’

She tried, but mostly she watched Sirius and Remus dance, in their own tiny bubble in the middle of the crowd, focused entirely on each other. When the song ended Marlene pulled her over to dance with them and she happily complied. She wasn’t sure how long passed before Sirius and Remus were there too, Remus spinning her around in a move she didn’t think James would believe. It was a blur to Lily, a glittery, hilarious blur. She danced with every one of the people she’d come with and bought Sirius and Remus shots for suggesting the idea of going out, ignoring Remus’ protest that he’d not thought anything up, it was just better than line dancing. She danced like she didn’t have a million things to do, like things had always been easy for Lily Evans, a ginger bisexual Chemistry-loving girl from the outskirts of Birmingham. And for a moment, before she forgot it again, she understood exactly why Sirius had wanted to come and dance here, with vodka and glitter, not so close to the anger and hatred or the endless work. To feel free.

Lily woke up confused and dehydrated. She lifted her head and groaned, looking around at James’ room. He was sitting on his desk chair, fully dressed, with a smirk on his face.

‘Feeling well?’

‘Urgh.’

‘There a glass of water there. Sirius said you ate most of his chips so hopefully that soaked up some of the alcohol.’

‘We had chips?’

‘He had chips. Well, you had them, apparently. That’s all I got out of him when he dropped you off here, almost literally dropped you because he was holding you up.’

‘Wasn’t he as bad as me?’ she asked just as James’ door opened.

‘More functioning. Still feel like I’ve died.’

Sirius walked in, surprisingly wearing a pair of pyjama bottoms. The entire of his face, neck, and torso was covered in different kinds of body glitter and his hair actually looked a mess for once. James started laughing.

‘Where’s Remus?’ Lily asked as she picked up the glass of water James had left her.

‘Asleep. I hadn’t the heart to wake him, he’ll feel so awful when he does. Come through when he does though, he looks so thoroughly debauched, it’s amazing.’

Sirius’ tone was surprisingly upbeat, but Lily knew that he was probably doing it to annoy her.

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, you don’t remember. To be honest I don’t remember it all. We stayed until the lights came on, you tried to make somebody give you a piggyback home because you were “too tired to walk”. At one point you fell over on the pavement and some passing twat offered to help you instead of-’ Sirius did air quotes but didn’t change his light tone. ‘-“that fucking fag”. However, I felt I was still the better option. Then Remus bought me chips and you ate most of them. And I gave you to James to deal with.’

Sirius walked over to James’ sink and poured himself a mug of water. Lily and James shared a look, silently coming to an agreement.

‘And I thank you for looking after her, if not for bringing her to get glitter on my sheets.’

‘You should see mine,’ said Sirius.

‘I’d rather not.’

Fifteen minutes later Remus walked in, looking as Sirius had promised: a mess of glitter and hangover, wearing one of Sirius’ t-shirts and not wearing any trousers.

‘Are we recovering in here?’ he asked, then looked at James. ‘Do you have coffee?’

‘Only if you tell me why it says “property of Remus Lupin” in marker pen on Sirius’ arm.’

Lily hadn’t noticed, possibly because her eyes were trying to only focus on non-moving things. James was right, though.

‘He wrote the corresponding sentiment on mine in glitter before we went out, but it wiped off. And then we found a pen left on the bar.’

‘And you mock me for my Instagram posts.’

‘Even Lily mocks you for those.’

James looked at her, but Lily kept silent. They stayed in James’ room for most of the day, drinking water and coffee and making James go out to find them food. He claimed that he’d only gone because he could see that Sirius was on the verge of claiming it was his prejudice that was stopping him getting them bacon. Lily was very glad that she’d got the bulk of her work done already. By late afternoon, the three of them were somewhat less hungover and went back to their respective rooms to get showered and ready for dinner. Lily was drying her hair when she got a phone call from Benjy. She answered, sure something terrible must have happened, and he explained that a bunch of Riddle’s supporters were in town making a lot of fuss and he was getting together some people to go and protest their actions.

Lily rushed over to James’ room. Within ten minutes they were outside in one of the college’s quads, waiting for everybody from their college to gather. They all marched down the high street with purpose. Benjy had said that there wasn’t many people there so hopefully their turning up might scare them off. As they turned the corner, Lily saw them, only about six or seven people, with a couple holding a banner bearing the non-committal slogan ‘say no to change’. Passers by were glancing vaguely at them, but they had things to do. And then she realised who one of those people was.

Severus stood near the back as if ready to make an escape, but he was there nonetheless, looking the same as he always had. Lily hesitated, wanting to hide behind the group, but also wanting to confront Severus. She wanted to tell him that his ridiculous victim position was stupid, that of course she was going to ignore his sporadic messages asking why she had chosen James Potter over him, and that she owed him nothing. Moreover, she now wanted to tell him that he was a bigoted arsehole and she should’ve always known he’d end up supporting somebody like Riddle. She had been a relative outsider and he’d used that to make her feel like she couldn’t’ve got into Oxford on her own. And now, she felt like maybe she could have, if she’d had the chance.

The Riddle supporters didn’t quite notice them at first, but they did once Lily and the others had all stopped opposite them and Benjy had turned around his ‘stop the hate, keep Oxford safe’ poster that she thought he might have made in preparation. Then, it was easy to see their sudden surprise at being opposed, and their shouts and handing out of cards bearing the address of Riddle’s blog stopped abruptly.

‘Not prepared for honest and non-anonymous debate, hey?’ said Benjy.

Lily stepped out from beside James and Remus so that she knew Severus could see her, if he hadn’t already. She stared over at him and caught his eye. He looked as he always had when he was fumbling for an excuse or a prejudiced justification for whatever he had just said. After a moment, he looked away. The group started talking to each other and one side of their banner was let down. Meanwhile, on the other side, they stood firm, not even saying anything, just waiting to see. 

‘He never said it would be like this,’ Lily heard from one Riddle supporter, somebody she supposed she might’ve seen in Severus’ company before, but it was hard to tell as they mostly all looked pretty similar. His companion shook his head. Everybody in their group was male, that was very obvious, though Lily hadn’t taken it in at first. It wasn’t surprising. 

In the end, there was no need for her to consider confronting Severus. There was little need for them to think about confronting anybody, because it wasn’t long before Riddle’s cowardly supporters got up and left, looking disgruntled that they couldn’t spread their hatred more easily. James pointed out that they should wait for a while in case they came back, but after a while they decided that they’d probably gone home to email Riddle complaining that it was harder for them than him, secretly writing a blog from his college office. People started to disperse, grinning at each other at their victory, however small.

‘Seeing as we’re already out, how does pub dinner sound?’ said James, and then added when he saw the looks on their faces. ‘No alcohol, just good hearty food.’

They agreed. The pub was busy, but in a good way, with people enjoying their Sunday. Lily ate her steak and wondered how the last twenty-four hours had happened. They seemed a world away from what she’d expected when she originally turned up in Oxford.

 

\---

 

By the end of term, James was ready to collapse. He was sure that he dreamt solely in complicated mathematical concepts by then, though Lily insisted that if he ever spoke in his sleep, it usually sounded like he was playing or watching a specific sport. One of the highlights of his social life was walking the few metres to Sirius’ room, collapsing down beside Sirius on his bed, and then the two of them watching YouTube videos and getting lost on the internet until one of them could be bothered to say they should stop. Sometimes Remus was there, but if so he usually half-slept leaning against Sirius, making occasional comments or humming to strange tunes.

James’ strange consolation was that Lily was busier. She was constantly dashing between labs, the library, and her room, with pencils tucked into her tied up hair for safekeeping. Once James had found that she had a thin glass thermometer in her hair rather than a pencil and he’d questioned the safety of doing so, only to find out she hadn’t realised it was there. Her friends were more scattered and less easily gathered on Sirius’ bed so she had to spend a lot of time arranging to see people in her spare time and trying to make sure that there wasn’t anybody she was leaving out who might really need a chat. James had tried to suggest she could let other people worry a bit, to which she had just pointed out that if somebody said that to him about Sirius or Remus (he knew she’d not said Peter because they’d only seen him once that term, and since seeing him it had been difficult to get an answer as to when he was free) he’d have laughed and completely ignored them.

He left Oxford with New Year plans sorted with Lily and Remus (after emphatically pointing out that no, his parents really didn’t mind, they wanted to see both of them again, and would as usual be out on the 31st) and a moody Sirius because he’d just received a letter from his mother bragging about Regulus’ achievements and how great his horrible cousins were. James wasn’t completely sure why she still sent letters to the son she claimed to have disowned, but Sirius always just pointed out that she wanted him to know what he was apparently missing out on. James knew from the ones he had physically read that she clearly also wanted to tell Sirius everything that was wrong with him.

Christmas was, well, Christmas: lights, food, bad telly. Remus had given Sirius money to get a new tattoo as his present before they’d left Oxford so one day a couple of weeks before Christmas James and Sirius drove in James’ Saxo to the nearest town with a tattoo place and James waited, feeling rather uncomfortable, whilst Sirius got four different phases of the moon tattooed up the inside of his left arm. Personally, James had been surprised that Remus didn’t think that was a bit weird, but then Remus had given Sirius a wolf necklace and laughed harder than James whenever Sirius made a werewolf joke. When they got back, Sirius acted like his covered over new tattoo was some war injury and played the dramatic victim for two days.

The rest of the time they worked or slept or spent too long on the phone to their respective partners. Sirius spent a number of evenings trying to teach Artemis tricks, though even James’ mum said it was a lost cause because Artemis had no interest in Sirius’ bribes. On Christmas Day they played charades and board games and Sirius kept trying to mix Baileys with things to see what worked. A few days later, James clicked on a link that Lily had sent him to see that Tom Riddle was calling for greater action from his supporters, though he was strangely reticent on what they could actually do. James hadn’t really thought about the fact that the students being out of town wouldn’t stop Riddle; it was almost like Oxford only existed when James was actually there.

Lily and Remus both turned up a couple of days before the end of the year, to great excitement in the Potter household. Remus looked pale and tired and James was sure that he didn’t so much hug Sirius in greeting as fall into his arms. Lily complained about how long the train took, but didn’t actually suggest that James should’ve come to hers instead. He wasn’t sure if that was because he had been so useless in front of her parents or because she was aware that Sirius couldn’t exactly be left for New Year. On the night they arrived, Sirius cooked dinner, having somehow banished James’ mum from the kitchen using magic James didn’t understand. Seeing as he had cooked for James, Remus, and Lily over the summer they weren’t surprised, but James’ parents were very impressed with the risotto he had concocted. Afterwards Remus and Lily got to experience the charades habit that was a family tradition, though the teams ended up very carefully chosen when it became apparent that if Sirius was with either James or Remus he could guess what they meant almost instantly through barely discernible gestures.

In the morning, James woke up to find Lily gone and discovered her downstairs at the table, chatting to his mum over mugs of tea and plates of toast. He was slightly horrified because Lily was, as she usually did for comfort reasons, wearing a pair of his pyjamas and he was sure that his mum would say something, but she didn’t, only waved and said that she and Lily were having a lovely morning chat. Later he tried asking Lily what they had been saying, but she brushed it off, insisting that it didn’t matter. He waited an hour before going to offer the other two a hot drink and still opened the door to find Sirius fast asleep, wrapped around Remus with his head on Remus’ chest. Remus himself was half propped up on pillows, one-handedly going on his phone.

‘You need to get yourself a less clingy boyfriend,’ said James. ‘Want a coffee?’

‘I’ll tell him you said that,’ replied Remus. ‘And please.’

Once everybody was actually awake and ready, they went out to buy the big excitement for their celebration: fireworks. They were trading off drinking for having fireworks, with James having promised his parents that it was only one or the other in the interest of not burning the house down. That night they drank instead, opening bottles of wine that were unwanted gifts James’ parents had rejected and then drinking them straight from the bottle like they were in Withnail and I. The next day they sat around with thick heads, hardly moving until James’ parents set off for their New Year engagement. Sirius and Remus took Artemis for a walk whilst James read over the fireworks instructions multiple times, only half listening to Lily talk about the chemistry behind them as he did so. Then he took them outside and found adequate garden locations for them.

They ordered in a huge amount of Chinese food and somehow sat at the table for two hours, eating and mixing together soft drinks like they were ten year olds at a birthday party. James took Sirius with him to check on the fireworks, then made Sirius smoke outside the front door far away from explosives. Artemis was safely settled on her bed in James’ parents en suite, the only room without windows and therefore hopefully the quietest. She didn’t mind fireworks too much, but James wasn’t sure if that would be true when they were coming from her own garden. All the firework preparations sorted, they danced around James’ living room and ate prawn crackers as if they hadn’t already eaten enough.

‘At least you’re awake this year,’ said Sirius to Remus, who was eyeing Sirius and Lily’s wild dancing warily.

‘I have to be, I know that James is going to set things on fire soon.’

‘Have more faith,’ insisted James. He pouted dramatically instead of saying how weird it was that Peter wasn’t there. He should’ve been, to see them finally have fireworks.

‘Are we having our customary kiss?’ asked Sirius with a grin.

‘I assumed we had other people to kiss this year.’

‘That’s not a reason to stop us.’

‘Fine. Lily, do you mind if Sirius kisses me before you so he can make his yearly assertion that I am repulsive?’

‘Of course not.’

‘She’ll look forward to seeing it,’ said Remus. ‘You know she will.’

‘And you don’t mind?’ asked James, laughing.

‘I knew what I was getting into. It will always be true that Sirius kissed you before me, though I’ve got first dibs on sexual tension so it’s okay.’

James mock gasped whilst Sirius and Lily cracked up.

‘Dare I ask whether you know the specific occasion of that tension?’

‘Freshers fair,’ replied Remus with a smug look on his face.

‘No! And I missed it.’

‘James,’ said Sirius. ‘You missed a lot whilst you were signing up for sports like an idiot.’

‘How on earth,’ Lily said. ‘Do you three always have revelations?’

‘We do it for the drama.’

The night did not quite lose its dramatic edge. They watched Big Ben strike midnight on the TV, then Sirius did as promised and kissed James once again.

‘Not at all,’ he said, then his eyes widened. ‘You know, this means by proxy we’ll all basically have kissed tonight.’

The other three yelled at him. James kissed Lily and then dashed off into the garden, beckoning the others as he went. Lily had been elected to help him with the fireworks after she’d played the ‘I’m a chemistry student’ card and Sirius had admitted he wasn’t that fussed. Sirius and Remus stood on the patio right by the house and James and Lily went off down the garden to find the fuses. James only had a moment of fumbling before he was ready and soon there were fireworks in the sky that he’d made happen. Admittedly not that many because fireworks were expensive, but enough that they could all cheer and feel like they had contributed to the lights and sounds that also came from nearby.

Back inside they opened the bottle of prosecco in the fridge and toasted the new year and their triumphant display.

‘If you’ll allow me to be awful and sentimental for a moment,’ began James, still holding up his glass. ‘I’m also going to give love a quick toast seeing as I think it’s worth noting tonight that the past year brought a few changes. Changes meaning that Lily is here with us in all her glory-’ She rolled her eyes at him. ‘-and Sirius and Remus could spend half my fireworks kissing - yes I saw - rather than staring at each other with barely veiled adoration. To life and love and all that shit!’

They all toasted and then Sirius picked up the prosecco bottle to toast with.

‘To James being a sap because he managed to do some explosions!’

‘Speaking of me being a sap,’ said James suddenly, deciding that moment to do as Lily had suggested earlier when they were sorting out the fireworks. ‘I have an announcement. After we finish, Lily and I are going to live together. Probably in Oxford as long as she gets to do her PhD.’

‘Congratulations! And other appropriate sentiments,’ Remus said. Sirius beamed at them.

‘Please get a pet. I’ll visit you all the time then.’

‘You’ll visit anyway,’ said Lily. ‘I’m a bit scared we might have to keep a cupboard of your stuff for when you’re there.’

‘Scared, or excited for the prospect?’

‘Scared.’


	8. Fourth Year, Part Two

Afterwards, Remus knew he should’ve seen the signs. At the time, however, he didn’t find anything unusual. He felt tired, but so did mostly everyone in Oxford. He felt wrong, but also he was in the middle of a one-year master’s degree and had a life outside of that, so things were always a little intense. Other small problems he should’ve seen, but he didn’t because he had spent three and a half years trying to overcome focusing on every little thing he felt in favour of reminding himself that he could get through it. When he was younger, he had been made to keep a diary of how he felt every month, tracking symptoms and ensuring that his cocktail of medication was doing the right things. As a teenager he’d slowly stopped, believing that he could notice when he felt different. The problem was, now that he was actually living his life, it was harder to tell when he felt different like other people did or felt different because he was a werewolf.

He was luckily in his room when it happened. Even more luckily, Sirius was there too. When Remus suddenly felt the world slip away from under him and he fell, Sirius caught him and talked to him and listened as Remus managed to say ‘I think you’ll have to call the clinic. And my parents.’

Everything that happened next was hazy to Remus. He was barely able to keep his eyes open and felt like lead weights were tying him down to the floor, and then the bed which Sirius managed to lift him onto. He heard Sirius on the phone, continually on the phone, and then talking to him, explaining what would happen though Remus couldn’t concentrate on it. He heard James come and then, finally, other people and then he remembered no more.

When Remus woke up, he was in bed in a room he didn’t recognise. He saw Sirius sitting on a chair beside him, looking very worried.

‘Sirius-’ he croaked out, then coughed. Sirius leant forward and held his hand.

‘Remus! You’re awake. I hope you’ll be able to tell them that I should be here, so far they’ve only let me stay because your parents aren’t here yet and I pointed out you’d panic if you woke up alone with no idea what was going on.’

‘Where am I?’

‘The clinic. I called just as you said and they sent a car all the way from London with some...I don’t know...medical people? I’m hesitant to say “werewolf professionals”.’ Remus laughed feebly. ‘They gave you some injection and brought you here. Had to almost chain myself to you to be able to come, but I said I had called them and I knew what they did.’

‘My parents are coming?’

‘They were my second call. That one went less well. It turns out even my manners-laden upbringing wasn’t enough for finding a way to say “your son has collapsed and I’ve called the clinic as he told me to and by the way I know what he is but that I know might shock you more than this news”. They’ve been texting me updates, they should be here soon.’

Though his head was fuzzy and confused, certain details jumped out at him.

‘They know that you know?’

‘Well, I think I implied it pretty heavily. This place certainly doesn’t advertise what it is though.’

At that moment, Remus’ parents suddenly burst through the door. His mum was immediately fussing and her frenzied energy gave Sirius the required second to drop Remus’ hand and make it look like he was just leaning forward to look at something.

‘Remus, Remus, Remus. What were you doing? The doctor said that it was just a case of over-exhaustion and stress mixing badly with the moon, but that doesn’t sound like a ‘just’, not when you’re collapsing places.’

‘It was in my room, Mum, it was fine.’

‘Fine! So fine that you’re in bed in this place. If Sirius hadn’t found you who knows what would’ve happened.’

Remus didn’t correct her about Sirius having been there when it happened. Through his swirling, exhausted brain, he was trying to work out exactly what his parents knew about Sirius and what he may or may not know about Remus. He barely had the energy to argue.

‘I knew the extra degree was a bad idea,’ his dad said, standing further back and looking apprehensive. ‘Trying to do too much. Not good for someone...like you.’ 

His dad looked over at Sirius, who had been keeping completely still as if he wasn’t actually there.

‘He knows, Dad,’ said Remus tiredly. ‘No need to be coy.’

At that moment, Remus turned his head to check and, yes, thanked the universe that Sirius was wearing a jumper that hid the wolf necklace. He felt that this would be much worse if it was visible.

‘Remus! You can’t just...It’s not something your friends can just know. You know that. What the fuck were you thinking?’

The expletive coming out of the mouth of his usually mild dad made him jump slightly and that alone made him resolved to protect Sirius however he could. Even if that meant not quite admitting what had happened.

‘It’s not a big deal, he doesn’t care and he’s not going to tell anyone. Look, if he didn’t know, he wouldn’t have known how important it was to call here and you and not just think I needed to go to the college nurse.’

‘That’s not-’ his dad began, but then his mum interrupted.

‘We’re very glad that you got here straightaway, however it happened. That’s important. But what’s also important is how you’re looking after yourself and whether you should still be in Oxford at all.’

‘Of course I should. I’ll just be more careful-’

‘This wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed at home.’

‘No, Mum, nothing would’ve happened if I’d stayed at home. I wouldn’t get to actually fucking live.’

There was a pause. He wanted to look at Sirius, but kept his eyes on his mum.

‘Life isn’t running yourself to the ground. You need to stay healthy. I don’t think Oxford is good for your health.’

‘Mum, it’s one time. One time. Most people at Oxford who aren’t werewolves have more breakdowns than that.’

She flinched at the word.

‘But how can I know you’re safe?’

‘You can’t. But I’m an adult and I can make that choice. And I have people to look out for me.’

‘I’ll always-’ began Sirius. 

‘Sirius I think you should go now that we’re here,’ Remus’ mum said loudly and briskly. ‘We are thankful that you helped out, but this is between us now.’

‘I’m not leaving until I know Remus is okay. And not just his health. Until you’re not trying to run his life for him, too.’

Remus exhaled loudly.

‘Who are you that you can talk to me like that? I’m his mother - we’re his parents - and I only want what’s best for him. Who do you think you are?’

Sirius’ pause took an eternity, even though Remus knew exactly what Sirius was about to say. It was what Remus himself had been trying to work out if he’d need to say ever since his parents walked in. Before that even, when he knew that the clinic were letting Sirius stay only as a temporary measure. He wished he could somehow telepathically let Sirius know that it was a revelation he was okay with. At that moment, it was necessary.

‘I’m his boyfriend. You don’t scare me. I have a terrible family who want me to regret my existence. I’m not letting you make Remus regret his because he can’t do the things he wants to. Of course you care about him massively, but part of that is letting him do things. Regardless of what he is.’

Sirius clearly meant him being a werewolf. Remus felt that his parents might have just taken that a different way, considering the information they’d just been given. Both of them were lost for words. Remus smiled at Sirius in reassurance. Sirius smiled back.

‘Is this true?’ his mum asked eventually.

‘Yes,’ said Remus simply.

She blinked. He supposed that there wasn’t a handbook for how to react when you find out your son is gay whilst in a werewolf clinic and the kind young man who brought him in and knows his secret is actually his boyfriend.

‘For how long?’

‘Nearly a year.’

‘And you didn’t tell us?’

He was surprised that she sounded hurt at that. Not because he thought his mum didn’t want to know about his life, but because he thought that her shock and horror would overcome the fact that he’d hidden it from her.

‘I didn’t know how you’d…’ He trailed off, feeling it was unnecessary to continue.

‘Oh Remus,’ She sounded like she might cry. ‘I...It’s an awful lot to take in, it’s...big and it’s not something I’m...not what you come across…’

‘No, I don’t think you do meet gay werewolves that often,’ he said. Sirius snorted. Remus looked over at his dad, who was looking uncomfortable and uncertain, but not angry. Stunned too.

‘Your mother and I...we’re going to go for a quick walk and...a quick walk. We’ll be back soon.’

‘We’ll be back soon,’ his mum echoed.

The door banged shut after them.

‘Holy shit,’ muttered Sirius.

‘You can say that again.’

 

\---

 

‘You met his parents and accidentally admitted you’re together and I wasn’t there to see it?’

James was so emphatic that he nearly fell off Remus’ desk chair. Remus, sitting on his bed against the pillows even though he kept insisting he wasn’t an invalid, laughed. His hand was holding onto Sirius’, who was sat on the edge of the bed, and Sirius thought this might be a lasting reaction from wishing he could’ve done so for more of the previous twenty four hours.

‘I’m sorry you missed out on me shouting at a woman I’ve never met before. You also missed me trying to convince the-’ He did air quotes with one hand. ‘“werewolf professionals” that I should be there and, later, that if they didn’t let me stay overnight to take him home in the morning I would find a way to sneak in.’

‘Did that work?’

‘It’s a clinic that has a reputation for discretion and flexibility,’ said Remus. ‘Also, Sirius may have let his surname slip into conversation and a good few of them understood who his family are.’

‘You didn’t!’

‘Needs must, James,’ said Sirius, who was refusing to regret having to do the thing he hated his family for doing, not for a good reason.

‘So how did it go once your parents knew?’

‘Well,’ began Remus. ‘Shock, awkwardness, an impromptu need for some fresh air. When Sirius went to find food they started making weird comments about his dress sense and whether he was a bad influence until I told them that he’s the best classicist in our college. I said bad influences don’t usually know Latin and Ancient Greek. I left out the getting kicked out of schools and the tattoos.’

‘Lucky I didn’t roll my sleeves up,’ muttered Sirius.

‘Yes,’ said Remus archly. ‘Because you’ve got the moon tattooed up your arm and that might’ve been a bit much.’

‘But they accepted it?’ asked James.

‘They came back and stopped questioning why Sirius was there, if that’s what you mean. And today when they came to say goodbye they weren’t surprised that he was still there.’

Sirius held back from adding that they had still eyed him warily, but he thought probably because he represented something they’d not processed properly yet and thus he was an intrusion on the world they thought they had. Nevertheless, he felt that if you knew werewolves existed and your son was one of them, gay people shouldn’t be that difficult. He’d kept to his formal manners after his outburst, though, so felt like he’d done his best to make a decent impression, all things considering.

‘And stopped saying you should leave here?’

‘Stopped saying it, yeah. Clearly kept thinking it. They find it impossible to get that I might want to actually live my life rather than stay safely at home just in case. I’m a werewolf, I’m not made of glass.’

Remus looked incensed, but also tired. He dropped Sirius’ hand and ran his own through his hair. Sirius had seen this on his face since yesterday, the frustration at his parents mixed with his love for them, knowing that they meant well but also that they were wrong. At least that morning they had stuck to overprotective warnings about smaller issues, parroting what the specialists had said when they told Remus he could leave. Eat well, fresh air, plenty of sleep. Sirius had wanted to laugh because it sounded like generic advice from a bad article about healthy living, but these were experts almost saying that Remus should counteract the exhaustion that came from the full moon with yoga and green tea.

Later, Lily came by with chocolate and a bottle of Lucozade, claiming she wanted to give Remus a stereotypical ill person offering. She and James then left to go to dinner and Sirius walked to Tesco to pick up the food Remus fancied, Pringles and a hoisin duck ready meal. He cooked the ready meal in the kitchen by Remus’ room, saying hello to the postgrads who came in to make their own dinner. By now, they were used to seeing Sirius around and had willingly accepted him as an undergrad feature around their building.

‘You don’t need to do this,’ said Remus when Sirius brought it in. ‘But thank you.’

‘I believe I made the pretty loud point that I was going to look after you, so what else could I do?’

Remus had been told to take at least a week of rest, which he in typical Remus fashion interpreted as sitting in bed to do work and only claiming sickness for the particularly boring seminars. After the first couple of days he came to dinner with the others, though Sirius insisted that he and James meet Remus outside his building and walk with him from there. It wasn’t unusual to not see people for a few days due to work or illness or coincidence so nobody had noticed anything was up with Remus as far as Sirius could tell. Lily’s friends sat with them at dinner and chatted about their classes and workloads without a comment about Remus or even asking if he was okay. He looked tired, but so did a lot of people.

Everybody was focused on work. James, Sirius, and Lily had their final exams looming ever closer and Remus’ dissertation wasn’t going to write itself. Sirius resolved to give up smoking after finals, but for now it was a vital nervous habit and an excuse to get outside of the library throughout the day. The next few months were not, he knew, going to be easy. In the back of his mind, he thought about what he’d do afterwards: find a job, try and stay near Oxford seeing as James and Lily were, hope Remus wasn’t going to suddenly dash off miles and miles away to, say, Scotland or the moon. He knew that Remus was actually thinking about taking a year off to work and sort out a PhD application. He also knew that was partly why Remus was so angry at his parents. Not only were they trying to restrict him living his life, but they were suggesting that he couldn’t continue down the path he wanted, academia.

One morning in late February, Sirius was woken up by James opening his door and calling out his name progressively louder. After a moment of confusion, he leapt out of bed, imagining the worst.

‘What’s happened?’

‘Breathe, Sirius. And then look at this.’

James held up his phone. Sirius took it and looked at the news article on the screen. The headline was loud enough “VIOLENT MUGGING IN CITY CENTRE”, with a photo of an Oxford street underneath. It didn’t take long to find out that the victim was an ex-student still living in the city, the attack had happened last night and apparently been a mugging in which a wallet and phone were stolen, and the victim was in hospital but not critical. What was most notable, however, was that it was claimed that the assailants - there had been two or three - had been shouting slurs and abuse at the victim as they attacked. Slurs that didn’t sound unlike the kind of thing that Tom Riddle posted on his blog.

‘Shit.’

‘Benjy’s trying to get people together to talk about it. He doesn’t think it was a mugging, just they took stuff as an excuse so it wouldn’t be so obvious that it was based on hate.’

‘Have they said there’s any connection to the blog?’

‘No, and they may never do. The police probably don’t want to treat this as anything but a violent mugging.’ James suddenly looked even more serious. ‘Sirius, be careful, okay?’

‘I’m always careful.’

‘No, you’re not. Don’t walk home from the library in the dark alone. I’ll come and meet you if need be.’

‘But then you’ll be walking alone.’

James gave him a ‘stop being stupid’ look.

‘Sirius, half the dicks in the university know who you are and why your family hate you. Probably more. Plus you’re skinny, get out of breath after five seconds, and dress like a gay rockstar vampire. I think you’re in more danger than me.’

‘What about-’

‘I’m going to give Remus and Lily “don’t go out alone at night” speeches too, don’t worry. But you get first pick because you’re most likely to think you’re invincible and march off into the darkness anyway.’

That night, they met with a bunch of people at the Leaky Cauldron, partly to share information and partly as reassurance. It had been confirmed that a number of racial and homophobic slurs had been used in the attack, but it was still being treated as a robbery. There were rumours that Reclaim Oxford had been mentioned by one of the assailants, though nobody was sure. Benjy, Alice, and Alastor were ranting about the police; there wasn’t much they could do otherwise. Sirius sat eating bar snacks and wondering if they were actually in danger. Earlier he had tried to tell Remus to be careful only to find the tables turned rapidly as Remus echoed James’ sentiments. Remus went a step further and pointed out that Sirius didn’t take insults seriously enough as threats because he’d heard them so much, but he needed to remember that this could be actual danger.

‘You have to understand, it was something I didn’t know I was doing,’ said Sirius quietly, later on, lying beside Remus in his too-small bed. He waited a second for Remus to realise he was referring to their earlier conversation. As ever, it was easier in the dark, to speak the truth. ‘But I had to learn to see the insults, whether it was from her or another family member or some kid from school, as nothing. I had to. Or I would’ve believed I was a waste of space useless cunt who shouldn’t exist. I should’ve seen them as the other person’s flaw and still understood that the hatred or anger or whatever that made them say it was dangerous, I know, but I didn’t, I just learnt to see them as small, barely anything, something that could be a joke.’

‘But you know to run if you hear them?’

‘If you remember, I did a pretty good running act once before. I can do it again.’

Sirius wasn’t sure if Remus was reassured by the reminder of Sirius’ leaving home, but they dropped the subject. Over the next few days there was little progress on the attack case according to official statements. Panic ran high and the college sent round emails warning students to be careful, as if anybody who felt likely to be targeted hadn’t already worked that out. Sirius did try walking home alone one night after he’d been in the library finishing an essay and time had passed a lot more rapidly than he’d realised. He had got halfway when he felt like somebody was following him and had ducked into a pub and called James to come and meet him. Once James was there, he talked about it lightly and claimed it was just paranoia. It was easy to say that with James in front of him wearing a bright yellow sports top and telling him stories of how some of the mathematicians had tried to start a betting pool for what food would be served in hall each day. Easy to pretend his heart hadn’t been in his throat. Easy to imagine he hadn’t jumped at every shadow between the library and the pub.

 

\---

 

After a couple of weeks, people focused less on the attack. Many people chose to believe the official statement that it was purely motivated by robbery. It was easy to hear them around college and around the city, loudly telling their friends that there was no need to jump to conclusions, that the muggers probably just yelled insults to distract the victim, that it was just something that happened all the time. James did not believe this. He knew that somehow Riddle was involved, even if he hadn’t himself sanctioned the attack. He had incited it with his blog and with the supporters who threw themselves into his cause, online and in the real world. Of course, the blog was still anonymous and untraceable. Alice had a theory that he had a computer science student or tutor helping him keep himself anonymous and his blog functioning. It sounded likely.

Amongst all the mess - and the endless work - Peter finally gave them a time that he was free to meet for a drink again. James almost suggested that Sirius find an excuse and not go, considering how pissed off he’d been the last time they’d seen Peter, but he wanted to give Peter the benefit of the doubt and not make Sirius think he’d done something wrong. They met in a bar that none of them had been to before, a fairly hipster place that served food and cocktails and craft beer. Remus had suggested it, pointing out to James that maybe it would be better to meet somewhere different, both a focal point and an avoidance of trying to make things seem like the past. James agreed and only hoped that Peter’s housemates had got him into craft beer.

James got there first, straight from playing badminton with a couple of other mathematicians. He found a table and hoped that his sportswear suggested he wasn’t part of their hipster clientele (helped by the fact that he had his contacts in because he’d been doing sport). He read the food menu and hoped somebody else would get there before Peter. Remus thankfully did, straight from a seminar and carrying an armful of books.

‘If I got this sharing starter where everything seems to come in little novelty baskets, would you eat some?’ asked James, whose stomach was rumbling.

‘Sure,’ replied Remus, looking a little nonplussed that he’d not even got a ‘hello’ first.

James went up to the bar to order the food and get drinks and when he returned, Peter was there, with a new haircut and an awkward look. When Peter went off to get a drink, James whispered to Remus.

‘Has he said anything about himself? The hair?’

‘Nothing. Just made a couple of comments about never having been here before which I think means he doesn’t like it.’

‘Where’s Sirius?’

‘Don’t you always know where he is?’

‘That means you don’t either. I hope he’s not skipping out on us.’

James didn’t really think Sirius was, but he’d felt the need to voice the possibility. Sirius seemed to lack patience with the new version of Peter, still clearly Peter but somehow different. Maybe it was leaving the university, James had wondered. Peter came back with a bottle of beer and told them the café was fine and the house was fine and no he did go out with them all as much any more, but he and Adam had been hanging out with some of Adam’s friends a lot. James didn’t see anything weird about this, though he did wonder if the housemates had had some kind of falling out because Peter wasn’t rushing to reference them all. Just as they were running out of questions to ask Peter and he was again avoiding asking them any, Sirius turned up, breathless and smelling of smoke like he’d been trying to rush a cigarette on the way.

‘Library,’ said Sirius, sitting down on the spare chair.

‘And?’ asked James. He had a strong feeling that the answer wasn’t ‘avoiding Peter’ and there was something about Sirius’ manner that was off, but he couldn’t quite place it. Sirius took a moment to respond.

‘Riddle’s lot were out protesting again, down Cornmarket. So I stopped by to tell them what I think of them.

‘Sirius,’ Remus said reproachfully.

‘Nothing happened. Much. They said some stuff. I took off pretty quickly after remembering that I was alone and I quite like my face unpunched.’

James and Remus shot each other a look, but they recognised that it was not the time. Instead, James started telling Peter about what they thought of the attack and the official responses to it, thinking that Peter could at least be engaged by something that wasn’t specifically about them even if he didn’t want to hear about their lives without him. Remus and Sirius added in comments, but Peter stayed quiet, listening.

‘But you don’t know it was them?’ Peter said eventually, once they’d stopped giving details.

‘Well, no,’ said James. ‘But it seems more complicated than what’s being said.’

‘Maybe you’re reading too much into it.’

‘I-’

James’ sharing starter arrived at that moment, cutting him off as he thanked the guy who brought it over and offered that everyone could have some if they wanted. Their conversation turned to discussing the place, its menu, and other local eating establishments. James tried to convince himself that Peter was just being sceptical, that maybe outside of the student bubble things looked different. That it wasn’t indicative of anything. He bought Sirius a bourbon cocktail when he went up to the bar for a second drink and tried to forget the sour note about Peter’s view of the attack. Remus asked about Peter’s family and soon they came back around to Peter’s housemates, who he seemed to have spent New Year with.

‘Yeah, Ellie and Miranda told us to “shut the fuck up” and things have been a bit tough since then,’ said Peter. James hadn’t quite been taking in what Peter was saying, something about comments made when they were playing video games, but after that sudden twist he tried to backtrack through his mind and work out what Peter meant. Luckily, other people had been listening.

‘Yeah, they might’ve said that because you were being pretty offensive to women,’ said Sirius in a false friendly tone. ‘You know, the stuff you were saying whilst playing, how when they complained you said that women liked it, that kind of thing.’

‘How would you know?’

Sirius looked taken aback. James felt himself tense, preparing, in case something exploded.

‘Because I’ve met women and I understand that yelling about what you’d do to them, even just pixelated women, isn’t okay.’

‘Adam’s mates said that they were just being touchy and would get over it.’

‘And did they?’

Sirius’ calmness was unnerving. James himself felt anger rising that made him want to yell ‘how do you not see what you did?’ at Peter, but Sirius, unusually, was talking in a level tone.

‘No. Keep saying they don’t like who we hang out with. Trying to bring Dom into it but he’s staying well out of things.’

Because he knows you and Adam are wrong, James thought. Sirius had a better response, however.

‘And who is it that you and Adam hang out with? What are they like?’

Peter looked a little surprised to be being asked.

‘Just guys Adam knows from Oxford. Christ Church, mostly, but not all of them. And they’re not all posh twats, they’re decent.’

James could see where this was headed. Remus looked like he wanted to say something, but neither him or James did. They knew the mention of Christ Church was going to get to Sirius even more. The college where his brother still was, where all his family were. Where he should’ve gone.

‘And what do they think about Riddle’s blog?’ asked Sirius bluntly. He was looking right at Peter, waiting for an answer.

‘They think he’s not doing anything wrong. Free speech, you know. They’ve got a point. He can say what he likes. It’s his blog.’

James couldn’t hold it in any longer.

‘So it’s fine for him to spread hate and encourage people to fight against equality and fairness?’ he said, not shouting but not exactly in a speaking voice either. ‘It’s fine for his followers to stand in the street yelling offensive things and promoting a blog that contains actual hate speech? It’s no problem that his supporters think you can attack people in the street because you don’t like them?’

‘You’re only looking at it one way.’

‘I’m looking at it the way that points out that if Riddle’s blog is to be believed, if his hate is to be believed, then half the people at this table shouldn’t be here right now.’

Silence. Peter opened his mouth and closed it again. James looked over at Remus, whose face was furious, and Sirius, who had a steely look calmer than either James felt or Remus seemed.

‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ said Peter eventually. James went to reply, but Remus beat him to it.

‘You say you think he’s not that bad, that’s what you’re saying. That’s it’s fine for a eminent tutor, under the guise of anonymity that no student can’t see through, to claim that a large number of people in the university - mostly the most vulnerable people - should be kicked out and leave the country or be locked up or worse.’

‘It’s not...I’m not…’

‘Get out,’ said Remus, fiercely. ‘I’m not sitting with someone who will defend a person who clearly thinks I shouldn’t be here. That I shouldn’t exist.’

Peter didn’t argue. He stood up and gave them one last look before walking out, a look that James couldn’t quite decipher.

‘I knew it,’ said Sirius quietly. ‘I knew it from the second he started questioning the attack. You can’t fucking trust anyone.’

James and Remus did not try and reassure him. James was thinking the exact same thing.

 

\---

 

Peter wanted to send the email. He had typed it up, deleted it, retyped it, and then changed a number of the words for no reason. He knew that it was bad that he didn’t dare do anything other than email. Not even text or anything similarly instant. He wanted space, space to run, space to not think about it. The words of his friends had been bouncing around his skull for days, even after he’d found out about the app. And he knew that he had to tell them. No matter how complicated it all was. No matter that he wasn’t sure if they wanted to be his friend any more. That sometimes he found it hard to want to be theirs.

He didn’t have the convictions they did. He couldn’t have confronted a friend, even one that had drifted away somewhat, about their views in the middle of a bar. Forming opinions was something that other people did and then Peter would nod, feel like he agreed, but often only until somebody more forceful told him something to believe. It was no surprise to him that he couldn’t form opinions. He had struggled with basic foreign language learning at school because the sentences formed had to be your favourite colour, your favourite animal, your favourite everything. Teachers thought he was copying to avoid doing work, not copying because he didn’t want to have to pick favourites himself. Peter did think that Riddle couldn’t be so bad; he liked somebody telling him what opinions to have. He had never wanted to have to defend thinking that, though.

And as his finger hovered over clicking ‘send’, he wondered what the proper way to do this was. Should he have called, urgently, breathless with worry, and hoped that one of them would be willing to pick up the phone? Texted with an urgent tone, foregoing punctuation and conversation niceties? Performed an act of contrition first, false and pathetic, with both them and him knowing that he hadn’t really changed his mind, that his mind had always been teetering on the edge of not understanding their convictions?

Three email addresses, ones he really only had from when James kept forwarding them details about the app because otherwise they had no reason to all be emailing each other. He had written ‘IMPORTANT RE: RIDDLE’ as the subject in the hope that they wouldn’t ignore it then. James, the most forgiving, would probably click anyway, he felt. He looked at their names. His best friends. He knew he couldn’t go back now. They would never be able to treat him as they had always done, like the fourth member of their group, a friend to be included even if he didn’t always feel in the same league as them. Not after he had defended what Adam and his friends thought about Riddle. Defended Riddle. Peter couldn’t change that and he didn’t quite want to. He was on this path now. But he had one last act of friendship to complete. He clicked send.

 

\---

 

_Hi guys,_

_I know you don’t want to hear from me, but you need to read this. This isn’t me defending myself._

_I found out recently that people who support Riddle and his views have been using our app, the Marauders app, as a way of finding places to meet that are out of the way and can be different each time. I’m not saying who from, but I overheard it being discussed and then I asked a couple of people (screenshots attached, identities blanked out). I’m telling you so that you three can do something about it._

_I’ve never been the brave one. Don’t reply to this. Don’t tell anybody that I told you. But I hope you can do something because I know you wouldn’t want our app used like this._

_Peter_

 

\---

 

‘I can’t fucking believe it.’

Though Remus shared James’ incredulity, he hadn’t voiced it first. They were in Remus’ room having an evening of not thinking about work, which had until that point mostly been meandering conversation about their time at Oxford and speculation about the great mysteries like people they’d not seen since first year and what was behind some of the doors in college. Sirius and Remus were on Remus’ sofa, Sirius lying with his legs off the end and his head against Remus’ thigh, and James and Lily were sitting along the bed and, for some reason, sharing a net of satsumas. It was almost the end of term and none of them were looking forward to all the work they’d have to do over Easter. Remus at least could bask in the fact that unlike last year he didn’t have to revise like they did, but instead write his master’s dissertation, a terrifying feat but without as much memorising things.

Remus, Sirius, and James had all got the email at the same time, though it was James who’d looked at his phone first. With all of the people they usually sent a lot of messages to in the room, nobody had a real need to look urgently at their phone. Once James had seen that he had an email from Peter, though, the other two had looked pretty quickly. And seen what he’d said. How the app that they barely thought about, that had become something too symbolic of the four of them for the others to consider even if they’d really had the time, was being used for the opposite of the fun it was intended for.

‘How could they do that?’ said Sirius.

‘It’s not like our names are on it, we signed it using those shit nicknames we came up with in like first year. And we didn’t put on a warning saying you couldn’t use it if you were a bigot. We just left cards with the password on around places. Anybody could have found it. Even them,’ Remus pointed out.

‘Hey, I still call you Moony.’

‘Not exactly the point, Sirius,’ said Remus, not wanting to admit that he liked the fact that it was only his nickname that had stuck and only with Sirius.

‘So we delete it?’ said James with a grim look.

‘Looks like it.’

‘And class it as a victory?’

‘Maybe as not a failure,’ suggested Sirius. ‘Failure averted. Hopefully fuck up them meeting, at least.’

‘I’ll call Devki or Aaron, see if one of them can take it down.’

James called Devki, the computer scientist who had sorted out the app to get it approved to be published, and quickly outlined the situation. He told her that he’d message Aaron, who had helped her, and let him know as well. Remus didn’t know what she was saying on the other side, but presumably she was as surprised as they were. James was talking about how terrible it was and agreeing that it was a shame considering how much effort they put in, then he said goodbye and let her get on with actually deleting it.

‘That’s that then,’ said James once he’d hung up. ‘Our app is dead.’

‘A sad day,’ said Lily.

‘I don’t think many people used it,’ Remus admitted. ‘Except right wing tossers.’

‘But it might’ve spread its wings and flown. Maybe it needed more time.’

‘Maybe we should’ve made the password “I love diversity” and then it would’ve been okay,’ said Sirius.

Remus thought it was a pretty depressing end to a fairly rubbish term. The following night he went to a formal dinner for the postgrad students and wished he could’ve been more fun, but he couldn’t help but brood on the app and the whole Riddle situation. His supporters weren’t exactly being effective, but their presence had added an extra sense of fear to people who didn’t need any more. Remus found it difficult not to keep texting Sirius if he came home from the library late because he knew that Sirius was likely to stop and talk to Riddle’s followers like he had before and Remus couldn’t stop the images in his head of Sirius lying on the floor, covered in blood.

Though he felt sad getting on the train home, he also knew he wouldn’t be gone for long. He was only going home for a week, mostly so that his parents didn’t think he was actively trying to not see them, before he went back to Oxford to work on his dissertation in the quieter, non-term time libraries. James and Sirius were only going back to James’ house for a couple of weeks so he’d have fellow endlessly working company most of the time. On the train his leg jittered as he imagined what his parents might say. When he got home, however, it was mostly just awkward. They didn’t know what to say, especially not when he told them he was going to live in Oxford the next year, get a job, and work on a PhD application. They didn’t argue, could perhaps see in his face that he would simply point out that he was an adult. He spent two hours on the phone to Sirius ranting about how they had clearly disapproved and they couldn’t protect him forever, then felt guilty for spending so long complaining about his fairly decent parents to Sirius of all people.

Back in Oxford, he spent a week alternating the library with sitting in his kitchen with the other postgrads who weren’t at home, all complaining about their respective dissertations whilst drinking a lot of tea. Once Sirius and James were back, that schedule was expanded to include going for walks around Oxford at weird times with Sirius, who otherwise built up restlessness from spending all day and some of the evening with his notes, and meeting James for lunch during which James wouldn’t let them mention work so they spent a lot of time imagining the lives of passers by.

One lunchtime the two activities were combined when James sent them an urgent message saying that somebody had posted online claiming to have proof that it was Tom Riddle behind his blog. Though James didn’t actually have many more details in person, the three of them drank takeaway coffee and walked around speculating what would happen next. The police were still refusing to consider any other motivations behind the attack, but the university might do something about the fact that an important tutor was running a right wing blog full of hate and prejudice, especially if enough students spoke up about it. It wasn’t long before they all had an email from Benjy about the situation.

They hadn’t told anybody about the app. They’d done what they needed to do, but it was too much to bear thinking about to admit that their pet project, their apparent legacy, had turned so sour. Instead, they had silently agreed to move on. Remus knew that the real legacy, other than their degrees of course, was them, their relationships with each other and all the things they’d done. He was not, of course, going to say that to James and Sirius, who would laugh and call him sentimental. He wasn’t sentimental; he was simply truthful.

 

\---

 

Nothing happened quickly with Riddle. Sirius hadn’t expected it to, though James had been optimistically excited for a few days before realising that it wasn’t all that simple. There was a process. A bureaucratic process that was far slower than James’ imagination. Benjy, Alice, and Alastor were all coordinating a stream of information and rumour, but all they knew was somebody was probably reporting Riddle to the university, claiming to have proof that he was behind his blog and had paid students to keep him anonymous. Lily updated them the most as she was pouring time into helping them and was friends with Alice and, though not as well, Benjy. It was impressive that Lily was able to fit it in with revision, but Sirius had always thought she had an air of competence that wasn’t dispelled by knowing her.

Meanwhile, Sirius spent hours and hours revising. He found it amusing that very few people seemed to believe that he actually did; once he and James were eating dinner and laughing at something and then they overheard a girl from the table behind ask how the two of them did so well and didn’t do any work. That had made the two of them laugh harder. Later, when they’d told Lily, she had claimed they had some kind of mysterious aura that made people think they were cooler than they actually were. James had pulled a face until she’d said that she had no need for him to be cool, preferred him not to be in fact. The truth was, not many people in their college saw him in his favourite spot in the classics library, in an alcove surrounded by copies of periodicals that most people were either ignoring or reading online, if the lack of interruptions he got was anything to go by.

Sirius was in the alcove one day when Remus stopped by, as he tended to when he knew that Sirius wasn’t anywhere else. Hearing footsteps, Sirius didn’t turn to see if it was Remus or just someone trying to find an obscure article, but kept reading his own notes on Catullus, trying to ignore his own obscene doodles in the margins from over a year ago. He felt a hand on the back of his chair and somebody leaning round and kissing him on the cheek.

‘Oh good, it’s you and not some confused first year who still can’t use the library properly and thought their intro to Greek myths was down here.’

‘Don’t be so condescending,’ said Remus. ‘You’re still an undergrad.’

‘I’m revising for finals, I don’t count.’

‘Ah, yes, revision.’ Sirius could feel Remus leaning over to look at his notes. ‘What part of your exams require you to draw that?’

‘I can’t help how dirty the classics are. I am merely a conduit for inspiration and that was how inspiration struck in that particular lecture. I was channelling Catullus.’

‘You’re a pretentious twat, that’s what you are.’

‘And how’s your dissertation going? Fabulously, I assume, seeing as you’re here taunting me.’

‘I had a meeting with my supervisor. I stopped here afterwards to tell you the news.’ Sirius opened his mouth to speak, but Remus continued. ‘If you say “are you pregnant?” I’ll walk out without telling you and it’s big.’

‘What’s this news, then?’ said Sirius instead. Remus moved to leaning on the edge of the desk so they could actually talk face to face.

‘A student, identity withheld, has reported Riddle for bribing them to sort out his blog and keep it anonymous. The details aren’t meant to be out, but that much is an open secret already, according to Lily. Partly because there’s an oblique post on the blog referring to it.’

‘Isn’t that...presumably not allowed?’

‘And he’s been following rules up to now?’

‘Okay, fair. So, what’s next?’

‘Benjy’s organising a protest outside the offices of wherever is dealing with the complaint to call for him to be suspended pending investigation.’

‘And James won’t stop me going in case something happens to me?’ asked Sirius in a facetious tone.

‘You know he’s only doing it because he’s worried. He tried to make Lily only go out at night in groups of four or more, but she told him that maths doesn’t stop assault and that she’d take her own precautions.’

‘She’s better at standing up to James than me. I can’t help but humour him.’

Remus laughed though they both knew that Sirius wasn’t joking. Sirius knew that James had good intentions, but it was hilarious to see the person who had once tried to climb onto the roof of his own house just to prove a point to Sirius lecture about putting yourself in unnecessary danger. He understood really. It was impossible to cling onto your friends and stop them doing anything that may harm them, but the impulse was there.

‘You and James are dangerously codependent.’

‘Is this the wrong time to admit that I applied for a job at the Ashmolean so I can stay in this city with him and Lily and you?’

Sirius relished the happiness in Remus’ eyes. It wasn’t like Sirius hadn’t been talking about finding a job in Oxford, knowing that Remus was planning on finding something to do there whilst he took a year out, but applying to work at the museum proved it.

‘As long as you live with me. What’s the job?’ asked Remus, trying to look casual about the whole thing.

‘Some low level education and communication thing. I might not stand a chance, but if I get an interview I can dazzle them with my love of old things.’

‘I’m not old.’

‘Never said I solely loved old things, did I? And if I’m right, you just asked me to move in with you.’

Remus nodded. Sirius pulled Remus forward and kissed him.

‘Sirius, we’re in-’

‘There’s nobody here.’ He grinned. ‘And your Oxford experience will be incomplete if you don’t make out with any boys in the library. It’s a rule.’

 

\---

 

James’ nerves meant that he had re-tied his bow tie five times already. That morning was his first exam and he hadn’t yet settled into an air of carefree nonchalance. Instead, he was putting off pinning the white carnation that signified the first exam status onto his black gown whilst drinking coffee and eating a croissant, both of which Lily had brought him. She was currently in Sirius’ room so James could get himself ready alone and then Lily and Sirius could wish him well as he left. Getting ready meant putting on the required academic dress, known as sub fusc, of black trousers and jacket and white shirt and bow tie, and then topping it all off with his gown and a mortarboard that he wasn’t allowed to wear but had to carry with him. That part was a little confusing, but it did mean that James had something to carry his pens in.

Eventually, James decided that the bow tie was fine and he’d get one of the other two to pin the flower to his chest. He stepped out of his room and saw a look on Sirius and Lily’s faces that was something other than ‘we hope you’re okay’. It was a lot more elated than that.

‘James, guess what?’ Lily was almost shouting. ‘Riddle’s been suspended! There’s an official statement that it’s for misconduct and he’s under investigation.’

James blinked.

‘Really?’

‘Really!’ Her eyes flicked up and down his outfit. ‘Looking academic there, Potter.’

‘Sorry my exam’s getting in the way of the excitement,’ he said with a smile, finally having found that false confidence.

‘Hogging the spotlight,’ grinned Sirius.

‘Will one of you sort my carnation? I’m no good with safety pins.’

‘I’ll do it,’ offered Sirius. ‘Pretend I’m being your best man. Practice run.’

‘Can I finish my degree before you start marrying me off?’

Sirius took the flower and, after a bit of fiddling, affixed it to James’ gown with the safety pin.

‘I’m so proud,’ said Sirius and pretended to wipe his eye. ‘Now off you go and marry maths.’

Lily wished him good luck and he set off, meeting some of the other mathematicians on his way out of college. He resolved to set any thoughts about Riddle to one side until the exam was done and instead they all jabbered nervously about their getting ready processes until they reached the huge old building where their exams were held. After everything, the exams were the one place he couldn’t go with his friends. Time to go it alone.

 

\---

 

When James finished his exams, they draped streamers over him and spent the afternoon lying on the grass. Both Lily and Sirius had exams the next day so there was no alcohol, which Remus was glad about because he needed to get to the library and write his dissertation to make up for missing a day to celebrate James finishing. They talked vaguely about Riddle’s suspension and whether their protest had helped at all, but it was hard to focus on serious topics when James was wearing a party hat and streamers. Around them, students were either celebrating or hurrying between their rooms and their libraries of choice. Later, they left James in the company of Edgar and some of the other mathematicians to sleepily drink cava in the dusk and returned to their respective rooms to prepare and panic (in Lily and Sirius’ case) and for Remus to look through his notes for writing his conclusion the next day.

Lily finished next and Remus was in the library when she did, trying to edit his conclusion. James, in all his examless freedom, met her with a whole bunch of Lily’s friends and took a huge number of photos which he shared on social media. Remus met with them all later on, ensconced in a pub with jugs of Pimm’s and a lot of confetti. Sirius turned up even later with Latin faintly on his face because he’d fallen asleep whilst copying out things he was memorising. In a reversal of their usual situation, Sirius sat next to Remus on a bench seat and actually fell asleep on his shoulder in the middle of the pub, which pulled Lily out of her excited and exhausted post-exams haze long enough to take photos of him for what she termed ‘future blackmail purposes’.

Remus felt like it was almost a race to the end between him and Sirius, despite the fact that dates were set and his dissertation hand-in date was later than Sirius’ final exam. They were taunted by the sight of James and Lily lounging around, taking in the sun and spending whole days doing things like exploring the parks and green spaces around Oxford rather than being cooped up inside. On the morning of Sirius’ last exam, Remus and James stood outside whilst Sirius smoked and drank two black coffees in quick succession, as had been his exam ritual thus far. James pinned on Sirius’ red carnation, the final exam carnation, and gave him final exam wisdom.

‘Don’t marry the classics, that’d be a fucking dysfunctional marriage.’

‘Always a pal, aren’t you? Now, how do I look? Think I can distract a couple of candidates to make my essays seem better in comparison?’

Remus had barely been able to utter a word, never mind make jokes about how he looked, before any of his finals the year before. Sirius stubbed out his cigarette into his empty mug, then handed the mug to Remus. 

‘Right, wish me luck. And hope I do well enough to make my mother seethe with anger.’

A few hours later they met up with Lily and went to greet Sirius out of his exam. After dumping a vast quantity of glitter over him, they bought takeaway pizza for lunch and ate it in the park, with occasional tourists giving Sirius a very weird look. It wasn’t until Lily made a comment that Remus realised people were staring at him too because Sirius kept sticking his arms around Remus and brushing a lot of glitter off onto him. They went back to college for dinner and then Remus went off to his room to edit his dissertation. James and Sirius went to the pub to have their two-person end of exams celebration, though Remus knew it wasn’t very wild because it was only a couple of hours later that Sirius appeared at his door, came in, and collapsed straight onto Remus’ bed, asleep only minutes after taking his boots off. The glitter would be a nightmare to clear up, but Remus didn’t care. He worked for another hour and then gave up, sitting beside sleeping Sirius and watching TV on his laptop.

And finally, Remus’ deadline came. With the requisite number of copies printed and bound and his eternal hope that he’d not fucked up any of the references, he set off to hand in his dissertation. Sirius, James, and Lily were all there too, bouncing along with the bright eyes of people who had started to catch up on sleep and were soon hoping to leave the exams haze. Once done, they went over to a nearby pub so that Remus could have a drink with his fellow History postgrads, all of whom were congratulating each other with stunned looks. He insisted that he wanted to get outside, that he’d spent enough time inside writing, so the four of them trouped off, bought sandwiches, and went for a walk along the canal. 

They weren’t doing their proper celebration, what James and Sirius had taken to calling ‘the big one’, until the following day to give him a chance to sleep first, so instead they stayed outside until everyone was too tired to do anything and then went back to James and Sirius’ rooms, splitting off accordingly. Remus didn’t quite collapse like Sirius had, but managed to last out the first half hour of The History Boys, which Sirius had put on because he claimed it was fitting but really Remus knew that Sirius just loved watching it. He fell asleep with his head on Sirius’ chest, sharing the space with Sirius’ laptop, and thought vaguely ‘well there’s another degree done’ before he drifted off.

 

\---

 

Though it wasn’t actually his last day in Oxford or even in college, Sirius began their end-of-work celebration day by writing his parents a letter telling them that he’d done it, got through Oxford without them, and that he’d never need them again. He wrote it whilst Remus slept, humming ‘Cherry Bomb’ as he did, though he knew his parents would’ve never appreciated the Joan Jett sentiment if they’d known. He wrote the address in the neat script drummed into him as a child and wondered if he could ever forget it - forget the house, forget the road, forget it all. Luckily there was little time to dwell on his family as James and Lily came in to discuss the plans for the day, meaning that their grand day started with a pyjama party. The kind of party with Remus staring blearily out from under the duvet after being woken up and Sirius wearing a pair of Remus’ pyjama bottoms that were too long and he’d stolen after claiming it would stop him walking into James’ room wearing nothing but underwear.

‘The end being nigh,’ declared James. ‘We must prepare. I propose we start with a picnic for lunch, an afternoon enjoying the delights of freedom and alcohol, and then see where the evening takes us.’

‘I propose,’ said Sirius. ‘That you stop talking like a pompous twat and also we go punting in the afternoon and pretend to be in a period novel.’

‘Any more propositions?’

‘I reserve the right to suggest things later,’ said Lily, looking round Sirius’ room as if for inspiration. ‘I never got to make Sirius dress me up like him so I could pretend to brood and things.’

‘It’s okay, we’re not dying, I’ll do it another day,’ laughed Sirius. ‘Though that might confuse James to an unprecedented level.’

‘I’d want nothing else,’ Lily said, throwing a smile at James.

Remus started to sit up.

‘I want the freedom to make choices once I’m actually awake. And not to be pushed in when we’re punting.’

‘If you’re lucky,’ replied Sirius. ‘Now, everyone, find your best “twentieth century novel set in Oxford” outfits and get prepared to celebrate. Off you go!’

James and Lily disappeared and Remus got dressed enough to go back to his own room. He promised Sirius that he’d ‘do the best I can’ in terms of a period outfit. Sirius leapt into action like he had been waiting for the moment, which he had in some ways. His usual look would not be enough. Instead, he put on tight grey trousers and a white linen shirt, added a paisley waistcoat, and then tied one of his smaller scarves round his neck like it was a cravat. It was the first time he’d regretted that his teenage state of constant rebellion had stopped him stockpiling too much clothing that looked like something his family might actually approve of: then he might’ve owned an actual cravat. Finally he added his black and white brogues that didn’t really match. His hair was already perfectly adequate so instead of doing much with it, he put important things like his hip flask and a book of assorted poetry into a satchel that James already told him was stupidly Oxford to own.

Remus returned wearing a v-necked jumper over a shirt and burgundy tie.

‘Alright?’

‘It’ll do,’ grinned Sirius. ‘C’mere.’

With Remus in front of him, Sirius flattened Remus’ hair and tried to make it look as dated as possible. He knew it didn’t really matter, but there was something about the day that required an effort to be made. Today they were going to celebrate the end of their time there in a ridiculous way, but what else was there to do, Sirius thought, especially after everything with Riddle and the blog and Peter. It was time to be ridiculous again.

Remus took hold of Sirius’ waistcoat and pulled him closer.

‘I see your wardrobe easily adapted to this theme,’ he said, lips hovering close to Sirius’.

‘What can I say? I already dress like a dated gay posh boy on occasion.’

‘It’s a good look.’

James, ever good with timing, walked in a few minutes later.

‘Oi, you can’t be telling us to get ready quickly and then be looking like you’re about to get undressed again.’

Sirius turned his head.

‘We’re ready. Just passing the time.’

James was wearing beige chinos and a light blue shirt and looked so fitting that Sirius wanted to ask what was his shocking secret only revealed halfway through the novel. His hair, as ever, was a lost cause. Lily stepped in behind him, wearing a navy summer dress and carrying a picnic basket.

‘Lily!’ exclaimed Sirius. ‘I didn’t know you owned clothes that don’t have science puns on them.’

‘Sometimes I’m out with you losers and have to mix it up a bit,’ she replied with a grin.

‘How do you have an actual picnic basket?’ asked Remus.

‘Got it in first year because it was easier than everybody trying to pile things into carrier bags. Thought it would go with our theme.’

‘You’re a vision that James just cannot match up to,’ said Sirius. ‘Now, to the shops.’

They set off for the supermarket and spent half an hour picking bread and cheese and meat and fruit and wine, debating everything like it was actually important. It being Oxford, their outfits didn’t get more than a couple of glances, though James and Sirius’ insistence on talking like they were public schoolboys from circa 1910 for the whole shop got a few more. After James had a two-minute rant about why people liked olives, they decided it was time to pay for everything and get out of there. Suitably stocked up, they went up to University Parks, which had the selling points of being not too far away and full of grass for lounging. They set up on the river bank, though a look on Remus’ face suggested he still felt somebody might go in before the end of the day. Lily had cutlery, plates, and wine glasses in her picnic basket which got her another admiring look as she handed them out. The day was sunny and warm, not something they could’ve bet on but very welcome. It already had a haze of memory about it.

Once they’d all eaten far too much food, they stretched out across the grass and reminisced about their time in Oxford despite having been doing so for days. Sirius rested his head on Remus’ chest and Lily took photos because, in her words, ‘you look like you’re in a gay period drama’. They finished off two bottles of wine, having saved one for whilst in the punt for what Sirius was calling ‘maximum aesthetic’ and Remus was calling ‘looking like twats’. Eventually they slowly made their way back to college and the boathouse.

‘James, you should punt first,’ said Sirius. ‘You love physical activity.’

‘Yeah, then you can show off,’ added Remus.

James glared at them but didn’t actually argue. They all settled in the thin boat and James took position at the back, pole in hand. Exactly as expected, James got far too into proving he was good at it and it took Lily three times offering before he’d let her swap with him. They passed around the remaining bottle of wine, forgoing glasses this time, and named every duck they went past.

‘I’m going to take one as a pet,’ Sirius insisted. ‘I’ll find the one I have the best affinity with.’

‘Artemis won’t be happy,’ James pointed out. ‘Neither will my parents, I’m sure a duck makes a lot of mess.’

‘We won’t be there for long.’

‘As long as you’ve got that job, that is.’

Sirius and James were going back to James’ parents house at the end of term with Remus in tow so they could sort out finding respective places to live and jobs. It would only be temporary, but Sirius had resolved to do every useful task he could for the Potters whilst there seeing as they had given him a home for almost two years. He knew - because James’ mum had actually texted and said - that they were happy to have Sirius there again because it guaranteed that James would come home again before moving properly to Oxford and not coming home between the terms. They were making a big fuss of it, but leaving wouldn’t be hugely different, not at first, not before they all had jobs and lives to get on with.

‘Can we get a duck once we live in Oxford?’ Sirius asked Remus, who pulled a face.

‘Don’t worry, mate, just find a flat that doesn’t allow pets,’ suggested James.

‘That didn’t stop him before,’ replied Remus.

Sirius swapped with Lily and took his turn trying to make the boat obey him, though it didn’t oblige and Sirius drove it into the bank so much that James actually got up and wrestled the pole out of his hands. Remus winced like he thought they would both fall in, and they nearly did, but Sirius leaned the other way and kept his balance. He didn’t want to ruin his waistcoat which had come from a vintage shop in Brighton that he’d visited aged seventeen whilst applying to Oxford. Remus had a go after James and was better than Sirius, though he punted them towards a low hanging tree and nearly got hit in the face by the branches. Lily got them back to the boathouse, smirking and pointing out that she hadn’t made them hit anything.

‘God, you two are as bad as each other.’

‘How dare you! There is no way I am as bad as James. He brags if he lifts heavy boxes.’

‘I know. He once bragged because he could pick me up.’

‘Dare I ask?’

‘We needed to reach something off the top of my wardrobe. I’d thrown it there and not thought about getting it down.’

‘Didn’t you own a chair?’

‘It was more fun this way.’

All the wine and sun had made them all lazy so they settled on one of the college quads to work out what to do next. Sirius passed round his hip flask whilst they listed dinner options, eventually settling on a French restaurant on the other side of the city. Lily stuck the picnic basket back in her room and they left again, edging their way around the bustling crowds of students and tourists.

‘It’s a shame Peter’s not here,’ said James as they walked. ‘It feels weird celebrating the end of being here without him.’

‘I don’t think he wanted to be here,’ said Remus sadly. ‘He never said anything back to that reply we sent him.’

Their reply had been a strange mix of thankful about his warning about the app and wary because he’d told them not to reply. Doing so anyway had been James’ idea, though all three of them had agreed that they couldn’t just leave it like that, with Peter doing something good but also not apologising. After Riddle’s suspension, which had been spitefully noted on his blog - anonymity nothing now - and then the blog left untouched, Sirius had half-expected they’d hear something from Peter, some kind of ‘I was wrong’ or ‘maybe he wasn’t so good after all’. His followers had certainly stopped trying to get people to read the blog and even had seemed to give up protesting in the street, perhaps feeling vulnerable.

‘But why wouldn’t he?’

‘People change.’ Remus shrugged. ‘People find it easier to vaguely agree with bigots than to hold convictions and defend them.’

‘Let’s not brood,’ said Sirius, and the other three laughed.

Over dinner they drank yet more wine and debated how all the people they knew from college would end up. Lily insisted that her friend Alice and Frank would end up together though there was no evidence to suggest that currently. James started listing members of his football team, past and present, and then suddenly jumped.

‘I forgot! Guess what I saw on Facebook? Fabian’s engaged! Fabian as in Gideon and Fabian. It’s wild. He’s only been gone a couple of years and they were both never tied down whilst they were here.’

Remus shot Sirius a pointed look and Sirius grinned back and nodded.

‘James, on that note, would you like to know something funny?’ He paused so that James could assume something very incorrect. ‘No, not that. It’s about Gideon and Fabian. You remember when we all went out with them and the rest of the football team after you won that big match?’

‘Hard to forget it, apart from the bits I didn’t even remember at the time.’

‘Well, that night, both of them propositioned me. At different times.’

‘And did you…’

‘No! I was happily infatuated and also spending most of the evening stopping you from making a complete idiot of yourself.’

‘I can’t believe it! You had the chance to sleep with one of them and you didn’t take it up.’

‘Unlike you and Lily, I don’t have a thing for football players.’

Lily laughed. James turned to look at Remus.

‘And you knew?’

‘Not until much later. Not at the time.’

‘No, I suppose if you knew at the time you might’ve made us all come home early.’

‘Hey!’

‘I’m just saying, you weren’t much subtler than Sirius.’

‘How long was it you pined openly after Lily?’

‘You three are ridiculous,’ said Lily. ‘None of you notice how other people see you. I’ve heard so many rumours and predictions you’d think you’re famous. In second year my friends tried to bet whether you’d killed someone together and were covering it up. When James and I got together four different people came up to me to check that I knew that he was already sleeping with one of you. I definitely once heard somebody ask their friend if they thought Sirius was a vampire.’

‘It’s funny how almost close to the truth that one is,’ said Sirius, grinning at Remus.

‘Hilarious,’ said Remus, rolling his eyes.

After they were finished in the restaurant, they walked down the road to a nearby cocktail bar. Sirius insisted they all drink Corpse Revivers because ‘a dash of absinthe is good for everybody’ and they all had to admit that the strong cocktail suited their look for the day. Whilst drinking they pretended to be 1930s socialites and invented wilder and wilder stories until Lily pointed out that Sirius was just recounting the plot of Cabaret for one of his. James disappeared and returned with a round of Vesper Martinis because he, predictably, liked Bond. They swapped their acting to be spies and discovered that Lily was the best at making up spy talk on the spot whilst Remus insisted on putting actual Cold War details into his.

Stumbling outside, it turned out the air was still balmy and the sky light, though Sirius suspected if they’d not been drinking all day it would’ve been cold. They walked down cobbled streets, not walking back to college but taking a meandering path around the city centre. James and Lily led, leaning on each other as they walked, and Sirius and Remus followed, giggling at everything they went past. After a while they sat on some steps outside the Bodleian and Sirius smoked dramatically. It wasn’t that late and there were students everywhere, a lot of them wearing black tie.

‘This is how I imagined Oxford students to be,’ said Remus, slurring somewhat. ‘Dashing around drinking wine and cocktails in stupid clothes.’

‘Did you see yourself doing it?’ asked Sirius.

‘Nope.’

‘Are you glad to be doing it?’

‘Maybe. Quite probably. I’m glad to be here with you.’

Sirius rested his head on Remus’ shoulder.

‘As am I.’

‘Do you remember the day we met?’

‘Of course. You were trying to lug your suitcase up the stairs and I came to save you.’

‘That night I thought, maybe it’ll be alright here.’

‘That night I thought, I hope that hot history student will be friends with me and James.’

‘You have to force yourself to not say “James and I” like you should, don’t you?’

‘It’s tough to keep up this rebellious image.’

‘I wondered why you’d come alone, like me.’

Sirius didn’t have to ask what Remus meant.

‘Not alone now, are you?’

‘It’s impossible to be with you and James around.’

‘Are you two using my name in vain?’ called out James from a couple of metres away.

‘Your ego is incredible,’ said Sirius, lifting up his head.

‘C’mon, let’s go home before my arse goes numb on these steps.’

James stood up and Lily followed suit. Sirius didn’t move straightaway. He turned to look at Remus.

‘I love you, you know.’

‘I do know. I love you too.’

‘Good.’ Sirius grinned. ‘Now, let’s see if we can get James to cry at a deer again and this night will be complete.’

**Author's Note:**

> Well, thanks for reading! My username is the same (shinobi93) on Tumblr if you have any pressing questions or want playlists from my fic writing process.


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